


Testing Limits

by atamascolily



Category: Portal (Video Game), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: New Republic Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Artificial Intelligence, Body Horror, Crossover, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Plot Twists, Portal 2 Spoilers, Portal References, Whump, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal, essence transfer, science gone wrong, the ghost in the machine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-05 17:38:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16372091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: Trapped on the crumblingEye of Palpatinewarship, a grievously injured Luke Skywalker is forced to navigate an experimental training course managed by a sadistic, strangely human AI intent on carrying out its top-secret mission ... all in the name of science, of course.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fans of _Portal_ will recognize much of the dialogue as verbatim from the games. It's scary how easily the two worlds mesh.

Luke groaned and rolled over. He was surprised to discover himself on a bed in what looked like a medical center--though he had no memory of his arrival or what might have happened to bring him here. His orange flight was unzipped to his waist, the upper half buried underneath him, exposing his bare arms and the the white sleeveless undershirt he always wore underneath. 

There was an IV unit in his arm, which seemed plausible, and a cerebral jack in his skull, which definitely wasn't. But neither of these developments were as urgent as the others that vied for his attention.

"Good morning!" a computerized female voice boomed over the intercom in a monotone, loud enough that Luke recoiled in surprise and pain. "You have been in suspended animation for 57 days. In compliance with Imperial fleet regulations, all testing candidates must be revived for mandatory physical and wellness exercises." 

Everything hurt--with the merciful exception of his prosthetic hand, which felt normal--but his legs were especially bad. It was as if--

Not trusting himself to look, he reached down to find that the legs of his flight suit had been hacked off. His fingers slid on metal where he expected flesh and the shock was enough to jerk him out of his hazy dreaming back into full consciousness. 

There were metal braces wrapped around his legs, surgically welded into his body by some unknown technician for unknown reasons. The surgeon hadn't bothered to fix the wound in his left leg, which still throbbed horribly, a few seconds out of sync with the pain in his head.

He reached for the Force. At least that still worked. He took a deep breath, forced himself to concentrate long enough to start the beginnings of a Jedi healing trance before the pain broke his focus and he slumped back, gasping. He closed his eyes. 

Forget the universe. Right now, the Force was the only thing holding _him_ together. 

"Hello! Anyone in there? Hello, hello!" a familiar voice buzzed above him. A mechanical voice. It sounded like someone he knew. Someone... 

"Oh, my, you look terrible, Master Luke. Are you all right?" 

Luke opened his eyes and wished he hadn't. Everything was fuzzy and blurred, but he was pretty sure that was Threepio's disembodied head skating along a metal track in the ceiling, fussing over him as it swayed back and forth. There was no sign of the rest of his body. 

_I must be hallucinating,_ he thought. He _hoped_ he was hallucinating. The alternative was far, far worse. 

"Not to worry, Master Luke. I will get you out of this. As best I can under the circumstances, anyway. If only I had my arms again..." 

There was a loud discordant BLAT over the loudspeakers that drowned out the droid's chatter. Luke flinched. When the sound faded, Threepio was still fussing over him. 

"Oh my! According to the ship's computer, it's time for you to go into suspension again. And it's quite dangerous! You've been under for so long already. It's not out of the question that you might have a case of serious brain damage. Of course, nobody listens to _me_ \--" 

Luke passed out. 

***

When he woke again, he was no longer in the medical center. He lay on a bed in a clear glass box, staring through a glass-paneled door into the non-descript maze of corridors that stretched beyond it. There was no sign of anything alive outt there--and, oddly, nothing mechanical, either. 

Nor was there any trace of Threepio. Luke wondered if he'd hallucinated the experience, and wasn't sure which to hope for. 

He had not hallucinated the braces on his legs, though--those were definitely real. He wished they weren't, but after a moment of grim panic, he forced himself to something approaching calm and sat up as slowly as he could. 

His left leg still throbbed, but his headache had waned a little. Both the IV and the cerebral jack were gon--that was good--and he was still half-in, half-out of his flight suit. Whoever had left him here didn't seem very concerned about the state of his clothing. 

He wrapped the arms of the flight suit around his waist so he wouldn't slide out any further. He wasn't sure he could get the suit off with the braces there and didn't want to try. The suit was too hot and bulky to be comfortable for long, even with the relative chill in the room. 

Where were the others? Nichos, Cray... were they all right? What had happened to them? He remembered the _Huntbird_ shuddering underneath them as laser canons fired, remembered shrugging on his New Republic flight suit as gravity failed and the air vanished--and then, nothing. 

Well. That wasn't strictly true. There were other memories sloshing around in his skull -- visions of the Jedi slaughtering his family while he huddled in the marshes, watching from the shadows. He was relatively certain none of them were real. He'd grown up in a desert, after all. Those stories were too conveniently in line with Imperial propaganda for him to trust them.. 

And hadn't the voice that woke him before said something about Imperial fleet regulations...? 

He shook his head. If this was the Empire's doing, he'd find out soon enough. Never mind that the Empire didn't actually exist anymore as a political entity, or that he'd personally witnessed Palpatine's death. The galaxy was a big place, and there was lots of nastiness left in isolated pockets, even outside of the official remnants. And now he was trapped in one of them. 

Whoever had done this to him had taken his lightsaber. He didn't even have that anymore. Nothing but his body and his wits and the Force. That had to count for something. 

(They didn't know he was a Jedi, did they? Maybe he could use that against them--whoever "they" were--)

Slowly, he got to his feet, wobbling a little, but making it upright on the third try. His injured leg throbbed, but he found he could walk, albeit slowly. The braces didn't seem to impede his motion, for which he was grateful. 

What were they for, exactly? 

"Hello, and again welcome to the Imperial Science Enrichment Center," said a robotic female voice--the same one that had initially spoken to him at the beginning, before Threepio had shown up. "We hope your stay in the relaxation vault has been restful, so that science can continue. Please begin the training module in three--two--one--"

The glass door in front of him slid open. With nowhere else to go, he stepped forward into the room beyond. 

There was something in the corner, something he hadn't noticed at first, in his panic over the new prosthetics on his legs. 

It was a white blaster, or so he thought at first. It was too big and bulky--more like a small cannon than a blaster--but he wasn't sure what else to call it. Whatever it was, it was round and bulbous and fit over his right hand--the prosthetic one--easily, as if it had been custom-designed for him. There was a firing controller with a button on either side of the grip that he could squeeze. One button was blue, and the other was orange. 

He frowned, puzzled by the implications. It was clearly important and obviously meant for him to use, and yet he had no idea what he was supposed to do with it. It wasn't the Empire's style to give him a weapon like this. And yet--

On a whim, he aimed at the wall in front of him--preparing to duck if the blaster bolt riccocheted--and squeezed the left button down. 

A hole in space opened in the wall, swirling with orange fire.

Luke stared. Whatever he had expected, this wasn't it. 

He fired again with the orange button, this time on a different wall. A new hole appeared, though when he looked back, he saw that the original hole had vanished. 

On a hunch, he shot the blue portal next to the orange one. The blue portal appeared--but now both it and the orange portal went somewhere. It looked like--

"No," he breathed. "It couldn't be. Could it?" 

Hesitantly, he set the gun down and reached his prosthetic hand towards the orange-rimmed portal. Whatever happened, he didn't want to risk his human hand. His right hand passed through the opening-- and at the same moment, a disembodied hand reach out through the other hole in space, right in his face.

He yelped in shock and jerked backwards, flailing his arms as he almost fell over. Even as he pulled away, the hand vanished from the blue portal and all was quiet. 

Luke stared at the two glowing holes in the wall, his mind racing. Quickly, before he could lose his nerve, he reached out again through the orange portal and the hand reappeared. 

He wiggled his fingers. The hand in front of him wiggled them, too. 

What he was seeing was impossible. And yet-- 

_So quick you are, to judge what is and is not possible,_ Master Yoda's voice chided him in his mind. _That is why you fail._

Luke knew better now. With the memory of Yoda to encourage him, it only took him a moment to screw up his courage and step through the orange portal. He emerged back into the room he'd just vacated via the blue-rimmed portal, now facing the opposite direction. 

"I don't _believe_ it," he whispered, even though he'd expected it after what had happened with his hand. 

Somehow, the Empire had created a device that could open stable windows in reality. Portals you could move through. And he was trapped in the facility where they had been tested. Were still being tested. 

_Training module,_ the voice had called it. He didn't like the sound of that. 

He quickly discovered the portals didn't open everywhere. The machine only worked on the flat, white-paneled tiles that lined some, but not all of the chamber. Luke was oddly relieved at this. They might not be able to help him escape from the facility, but at least he wouldn't have to worry about accidentally opening a void to deep space and sucking all the air out. Assuming he was still aboard a ship and not on a planet after all. 

What had happened, exactly? He thought they had been boarded by the ship that had shot at them.... but was that a dream, too? Hadn't there been other things happening, things he couldn't quite remember at the moment? 

The way out of the maze was obvious once he knew what to look for. There were signs and arrows pointing him the right direction, but they made no sense until you understood what the portal device did and how it worked. He just had to follow the instructions and shoot the portals in the correct places into order to make it to the exit. Once there, a doorway opened before him, and a turbolift appeared, always moving up, to take him to another level, with a different maze each time. 

He quickly discovered that momentum was conserved when he moved through the portals. That was a useful, albeit startling discovery. He also learned why they'd surgically attached the braces to his legs: he could land without additional injury if he popped out of the ceiling at high velocities and crashed to the flooor. Even in his incapacitated state, they made rolling and jumping much easier. He wouldn't have to rely on the Force to slow his fall and ensure a gentle landing. 

As he progressed through the levels, the mazes grew more and more complex. In order to continue on, he frequently had to run through one portal, then fire another at a different wall just before he fell through the second, putting him in a completely different orientation from his starting point. Even knowing the braces would catch him if he fell, it took all his courage to make these leap--and fire the portal gun again as he hurtled forward, so the original orange portal vanished and a new one opened up on the wall across the room even as he hurtled towards the blue.... 

But after a few disastrous runs, he began to get the hang of it, though every impact made him gasp, even with the braces muffling the brunt of the landing. He understood now why the designers had ensured the portal device latched securely to his hand - he would have lost an ordinary blaster after the first round. 

He touched the panel at the end of another maze. The lift was already there, waiting for him. 

"You have reached the end of the training module," the monotonous female robotic voice informed him, the same one that had spoken to him earlier. "Testing will begin in three, two, one--" 

The lift doors opened and he stared out at yet another maze. 

And then it began all over again.


	2. Chapter 2

The tests became increasingly bizarre as he progressed. Vivid pictograms on the floor, walls and ceilings warned of the hazards: electroshock, acid, incineration, fire, and a host of flying cephalopods that Luke had no desire to ever encounter. Evidently, the facility's designers had done their best to ensure language barriers would not inhibit a subject's chances of survival. He wasn't sure if that was comforting or not. 

The signs weren't for show, either. He'd gotten electrocuted more than once when he hit the wrong spot coming in for a landing, leaving him broken and twitching on the floor until the spasms passed. It was like being tortured by the Emperor, but less personal, which somehow made it worse. He was increasingly forced to vault over open chemical pits, whose fumes made him nauseous. He had no desire to find out the hard way what falling into one would do to him. There was nothing to do about the cephalopods, but keep going and hope he wouldn't accidently unleash them into the testing chamber with him. 

Sometimes, he needed blocky white cubes that came out of air shafts and served as weights to hold open doors and buttons. Strategic use of both the cubes and the portal device got him around the glass walls and open pits that were increasingly in his path, along with the other obstacles. 

His tasks were complicated by the poor conditions of the training course. Ceiling tiles fell at his approach; blocks of rubble scoured with laser fire lay piled in the corners; the lights flickered and dimmed at random intervals, forcing him to navigate in the dark until they returned. Unknown liquids oozed down the walls and across the plated floors, causing him to slip and fall if he didn't pay attention. They didn't seem to be actively poisonous, but he avoided touching them all the same. 

Luke didn't know what had caused the damage, but he doubted any of it was intentional. There was a scattered, careless, random quality at work, as if the facility was determined to keep going at any costs, ignoring entropy for as long as possible with grim, unyielding determination completely in character with the Imperial mindset. 

The computer--or whatever it was that spoke in that robotic female monotone--talked to him. She always talked to him now when he entered or left a chamber, only to fade out at seemingly random intervals in the middle of a run. Somehow, Luke had no problems using female pronouns for her. Despite the dull, uninflected monotone, she seemed alive and human in a way that he'd never encountered with a droid or artificial intelligence before. 

"Please do not attempt to remove testing apparatus from the testing area," she warned him when he attempted to carry one of the cubes to the next level. Ignoring her, he pushed forward with it--only to watch in horror as it smouldered in his free hand, the one that wasn't carrying the portal gun. Luke barely had the time to toss it back down the corridor behind him, vaulting around the corner just in time to spare himself the brunt of the shrapnel that rained down when the cube exploded. 

"A replacement Imperial Science Weighed Storage Cube will be deliver shortly upon your arrival to the next chamber," the computer said with a primness that surpassed even Threepio's most self-righteous moments. 

"You're doing very well," she continued. "Long live the Empire."

Luke swallowed back a curse, as he settled into the lift and let himself be transported to the next set of rooms. So he wasn't allowed to have anything except the portal device in the chambers--that and the clothes he was wearing. They'd stripped him of his lightsaber and anything remotely useful as a weapon. That didn't bode well, but at least they hadn't tried to kill him outright yet. As long as he played the game, he was valuable in the computer's eyes; she wouldn't stoop to killing him outright as long as he played along with her game. 

But after that, he made a point of halting at every opportunity to sift through the rubble he passed, or peer through any openings he encountered -- searching for anything, anything that might help him get out of this claustrophobic maze. But so far, he had yet to find any openings he could exploit. 

He wondered what Cray would think about this mysterious computer, imagined her surprise and delight at uncovering some new development in her chosen field in the middle of this blasted wasteland in deep space. Or maybe the computer was nothing special, and Cray would know right away how to disarm her and lead them all to freedom. But running that scenario in his mind led to worry about where Cray was right now, and what had happened to her since the _Huntbird_ 's destruction--and from there to panic--so he stopped. 

His fear wouldn't help Cray now, he told himself. If she and Nichos and Threepio were still alive and intact, he'd find them and they'd escape together. He had to make it through--to what, he wasn't sure of--and keep moving. As long as he was alive and moving, there was still hope.

But that left the mysterious computer as his only a companion, an eerie, disembodied simulacrum of a person. One who knew an awfully lot about him, too. 

Some of what she said was standard Imperial dogma--much of it ripped verbatim from the same program they'd used to brainwash him in the medical center. But intermixed among the half-truths and outright propaganda were other, more personal details... leaving Luke to wonder just how much she knew about him, and how much she was holding back. 

"You, [Subject Name Here], must be the pride of [Subject Hometown Here]. Almost as if you were a Jedi," she said at one point. "Your family must be very proud of you. Or they would be if they weren't dead because of you." 

And, later: "To be a test subject is the very highest honor. You wouldn't be here if it wasn't. To dedicate your life is the glory of the Empire is the very best reward. Not that you can appreciate it, Rebel scum." 

She was also a bully. No, that was ridiculous--whoever programmed her had _programmed_ her to be a bully--yet he his fear and dread swelled every time her voice crackled over the loudspeakers. In this game of psychological warfare, the Empire was closer to winning than Luke cared to admit. 

His personal appearance was a favorite target of hers, but when hinting that he was overweight and out of shape didn't result in the reactions she wanted, she switched to more other jibes. "Mind the gap," she said when he tripped and fell sprawling across the floor on a loose paver. "Paying attention to what you are doing is an essential component of the test protocol. Please note that any appearance of danger is a device meant to enhance your testing experience," she added, apropos of nothing, which unnerved Luke more than any outright threat. 

In theory, there was Corellian ryshcate and grief counseling waiting for him when he got to the end, or so she promised. She was very insistent about that, seemed to regard it--and not survival--as the only reward worth considering. That in itself seemed woefully out of character for the Empire, but Luke was too dazed to care. It was very odd, but he would happily devour a whole plate of it given the chance. There was no food in any of the chambers, and nor any water he cared to drink. 

It wasn't always easy to understand her. Sometimes her words slurred, or were unintelligible gibberish, a hemorrhaged slurry of numbers and nonsense. Every time she seemed on the verge of some important revelation, her voice would fade out or redact important words at the most critical moments. 

Sometimes he tried to talk to her, but she never gave him a direct reply. It wasn't clear if she was responding to what he did or if her words were automatic cues triggered by progression through the tests.

"Please be advised that the taste of blood is not part of any test protocol, but is an unintended side effect of the Imperial Science Testing Chambers, which may also emancipate dental fillings, dental enamel, and teeth for those beings who possess them," she said at one point when Luke's mouth was so metallic and raw, he hadn't even noticed he was bleeding until she'd said that. 

She was authoritative and insistent, but unreliable. She didn't seem to notice the condition of the training ground, for one thing. Or that the Emperor was dead, his fleet scattered and lost among the distant stars.

He doubted it would make much difference if she knew. After all, there was only the Mission. There were only the tests. There was only the glorious Will of the Empire, and she was its direct embodiment. 

She was very insistent about that, too.

***

"As a part of our required test protocol, we will not monitor the next chamber," the Will told him at the beginning of a new level. "You are completely on your own. Good luck." The loudspeaker crackled and went still. 

Luke stared. He wasn't sure he trusted that voice. But if it really was true, then perhaps he finally had a chance to break free. All he needed was an opening--

The chamber wasn't especially hard. He could see the exit in the distance, several levels up, but getting there took him into a maze of corridors and he quickly lost track of his intended destination. He swung around a corner, expecting to see the doorway at last--

Only to find himself staring into the laser sight of a single white droid balanced on three black legs, who exclaimed, "Target acquired!" in a high-pitched mechanical monotone and immediately opened fire. 

Without the Force, he would have been dead. With it, he had a half-second of warning that pulled him down in time just enough to dodge a direct hit. The bolt hit his left upper arm, and he shouted in surprise and pain, jerking back around the corner, safely out of the range of fire. 

He pressed against the wall, dropping the portal device and cradling his wounded arm as best he could, even though there was no blood, only raw burned flesh where the bolt had singed him. 

The loudspeakers cracked as the Will laughed, an ugly horrible sound with no emotion in it whatsoever--which was somehow worse than outright gloating. "Ha, ha, ha. Ha." 

Luke's head jerked back. She couldn't possibly have seen this, could she? She'd said he wasn't being monitored as part of the testing protocol. And yet, if it was a coincidence, it was an eerily uncanny one. 

And then as quickly as it came, the laughter was gone and all was quiet again, except for the labored sound of his breath as he struggled to calm himself. 

Now that he knew what to look for, he could see the white turret's laser sight focused on the wall across from him. He would have to be mindful of this new kind of obstacle in the future. 

The question was, how was he going to get past it? 

He slumped back against the wall, pondering his options. Of course, he had an advantage that the other testing subjects didn't have. He could use the Force to lift the turret up out of harm's way and destroy it from a distance. He wasn't at his best right now, and he'd hoped to save his energy for self-healing, and yet--

\--and yet, the Will expected him to solve this test, using only the tools she had given him. 

Which in this case meant the portal device. All he had to do was look for where he could shoot the portals, and the solution would reveal itself. 

Always, always, always, it came down to portals. 

That was what the Empire wanted out of this facility. They'd manufactured a prototype and they were hard at work on the R&D needed to make it happen, because the Will said they must. Because she'd been _programmed_ to say that they must. 

"Are you still there?" the turret whispered. For a moment, Luke couldn't breath and braced himself for another attack, but then he heard the turret sigh "Target lost," and he relaxed. Whatever it was doing, Luke had escaped its notice for the moment by vanishing from sight. 

He peered around the corner, ready to dodge, but the turret didn't move or swivel to face him. He realized after a moment that despite its ability the speak, the turret was effectively no more sophisticated than an E-Web heavy repeating blaster cannon, one that wouldn't swivel or dive or shoot him unless he stepped into view of its targeting sight. That certainly made things easier for him--real intelligence would have made his task much more difficult. . 

He shot one portal into the wall behind the turret, and then another into the wall the turret was facing. The turret immediately opened fire--but even as it did so, the bolt ricocheted through the first portal and hit the machine squarely from behind. 

"Ahhhh," the turret moaned, still in that high-pitched monotone, so life-like that Luke flinched in spite of himself. It only had time for one final exclamation--"I don't blame you"--before toppling into pieces on the floor. 

Luke stared at the turret in dismay, his heart racing at the echo of that last passive-aggressive comment. Could it be that the Empire had somehow figured out how to absorb the life energies of living beings into machines, the way the Ssi-ruuvi did? Is that what he was dealing with here? 

Is _that_ what made the Will so eerily human? 

He wouldn't put it past the Empire to have done just that. 

There were more turrets further up, of course, but now that he knew what to expect, he was more prepared. Very tentatively, he reached out to probe the next turret with the Force--only to stagger back in shock at what he found. 

There was no sign of any Ssi-ruuvi entechment in it--no living energy at all. The turrets were simply primitive droids that someone with a twisted sense of humor had programmed to sound exactly like a sentient being when damaged. Or--even worse--they might be as sentient and self-aware as Artoo and Threepio.

_What kind of person would DO that?_ Luke thought in outrage, then realized where he was. _Ah, yes. The Empire. That's what._

"I see you," sang the turret as he stepped into range. "There you are--" 

Between the portal gun and the Force, it was quick work to eliminate the turrets when they appeared, though he never could completely squelch the guilt that flared when they cried out in pain from his attacks. "Why? Why? Why?" 

"I'm sorry," Luke whispered, in spite of himself. "I am so, so, so sorry." 

"I don't blame you," the turrets always said, before falling silent. 

He hated the Will for making him destroy them--and for making the task far crueler than it had to be. He had no doubt whatsoever that his anger and resentment was precisely the point. _That's exactly what the Emperor wants. Don't fall for his games._

The Will was waiting for him when he reached the end of the maze. "As part of a required testing protocol, our previous statement suggesting that we would not monitor this chamber was an outright fabrication. Good job." 

Only the knowledge that _they were doing this deliberately to break him_ kept Luke from collapsing in the turbolift in pain and rage. "I won't give in," he whispered under his breath so that the Will couldn't hear him. "You won't get me like that so easily, Your Majesty." 

"As part of the required protocol, we will stop enhancing the truth in three--two--" The voice dissolved in a burst of static, but it didn't matter. Even if she'd finished her countdown, he still wouldn't believe her.

"If you become light-headed from thirst, feel free to pass out," she added as an aside. 

After that, Luke made a point of destroying any security cameras he saw as he passed. It didn't stop her from talking to him, but he felt less helpless when she did. The fewer ways she had to spy on him, the better.


	3. Chapter 3

As the turbolift surged upwards towards yet another level, Luke leaned back against the translucent wall and took stock of his situation.

Left leg: bad. Very bad. He didn't remember getting it, but the wound ran from the side of his ankle up to mid-thigh, a deep gouge than penetrated almost to the bone, straight through the tendons. There was a red rawness around the edges that he hoped wasn't the beginning of an infection. If they had bothered to give him bacta in the med center-- _anything_

But they--whoever "they" were, which was still fuzzy--had been more interested in indoctrination and mind-drugs to force him into compliance. At least the marks from the IV and cerebral jack had scabbed over and were healing normally. The sight of the braces surgically implanted in his legs gave him nausea but at least the surgery hadn't crippled him further. On the contrary - as much as he hated them, they made the inevitable falls and scrapes through the portals much easier on him. 

Sorting through the hazy maze of signals running to his brain was challenging. He was not inclined to nudge too deeply, lest he become incapacitated from the pain. With the Force, he could approximate normal functioning of the leg, but it was complicated to do that _and_ urge his body towards rapid healing _and_ deal with everything else that was going on. Most of the time he could keep the stabbing sensation as a distinct background hum--annoying, but tolerable. But every time his concentration slipped, he was viciously reminded that this ordeal wasn't over yet. 

The blaster wound in his arm, however, was surprisingly superficial on closer examination. It hurt, but not unbearably so, or maybe it was only in contrast to the other injuries. It had torn through skin and muscle, but he had full functional use of the limb. He could probably fix that one overnight if he was allowed the opportunity to rest in the near future. 

Head: still aching. He couldn't remember the details of the attack that had crippled the _Huntbird_ , but he suspected a concussion after the shields failed and the bulkhead in front of him exploded. It would explain the double vision and the short-term memory loss. 

He'd sifted through most of the brainwashing, discarding the unwanted memories and attitudes they'd pumped into him, to where he was reasonably certain of his identity and history. He was Luke Skywalker - farm kid from Tatooine launched into the middle of the Galactic Civil War, heir to the nearly lost traditions of the Jedi order. He was, in fact, a teacher (currently the only teacher) at the nascent Jedi academy he'd founded on the fourth moon in the Yavin system. He'd been traveling with Threepio and two of his students when they'd been attacked, for some important reason that he couldn't quite recall now but would hopefully return to him at some point. His father was Darth Vader, but his mother's true identity was unknown. And his sister--

 _Leia! Why didn't I think of her before now?_

Only a few short years ago, he'd called out to her from more dire straits than these, reached out to her with his mind, not knowing how or why he called for her, or whether she would hear his cries. But against all odds, she had--and that was why he'd survived this long. Because Leia had heard him. 

Could she hear him now? 

He had nothing left to lose by trying. 

He closed his eyes. _Leia,_ he said in his mind. _Leia_. 

Probing out in the darkness, he sought to pinpoint a single mote of dust in the vast, infinite space of the universe. He was too small, and the galaxy was too large for such a feat. It was impossible, completely and totally impossible-- 

_Size matters not_ , Yoda had told him once. Luke had since learned that distance, space, time--none of those pillars of a reality he'd once taken for granted--mattered, either. What mattered was the _reaching_. What mattered was the _feeling_. 

What mattered was that they were _connected_ , linked by countless ties of love and thought and habit that burst out like lightning with the Force-- 

_Leia. I'm trapped. I need your help. I don't know where I am. Be careful--there's something evil here. Something of the Empire. I don't understand it, but it destroyed our ship, caught us unawares, took us prisoner. Help me, Leia. You're my only hope--_

The turbolift shuddered to a halt and the doors swung open with a quiet whoosh. He opened his eyes and shifted his grip on the portal device, but otherwise remained motionless, oddly comforted against all logic and reason. 

He didn't know if she had heard him. He hadn't felt--seen--any response, not even a sign that his call had even reached her. But his heart was still and calm, and he was more relaxed and at peace than he had since he'd first steered the _Huntbird_ into the Moonflower Nebula, as Cray and Nichos perched behind him and teased a bewildered Threepio. 

Threepio. Luke had almost forgotten about disembodied head had visited him in the medical center. Maybe he was here somewhere in this terrible place, too. He couldn't use the Force to locate droids. But maybe if he could get out of these chambers, he could find him-- 

_Something_ had happened when he called. He was certain of it, even if he didn't understand what it was. And for now, that was enough of a reason to keep going. 

He set his shoulders, and stepped out of the lift.

***

The next set of chambers featured a new obstacle: the Imperial Science Eclision Grid. It was a bureaucratic, jargon-filled phrase for a very simple concept: an energy field that killed you if you touched it. Luke knew this because the Will locked him in a room full of monitors before beginning the test, each one playing the same instructional video. 

It wasn't so bad at first. A single scientist--his face as pasty and devoid of character as his pristine lab coat--extolled the virtues of the Imperial Science Eclision Grid, as if making a sales pitch to a circle of bored Moffs in search of idle amusement. Perhaps he was. There was no end to productive uses for the device: it an excellent method to protect personal property, restore order in crowded prisons, and keep children, the elderly, and the restless poor out of mischief. The best part was that it only took one nasty death for everyone else to fall in line, the scientist concluded. 

As if to prove the point, there was an abrupt cut to footage of a young human male in Imperial-grey fatigues standing in a test chamber Luke hadn't seen before, dodging an endless stream of turret fire. Unlike the turrets look had met so far, these were clearly military-grade battle droids, and could adjust their positions when the prisoner dodged. As Luke stared in horror, the attacks forced him closer and closer to an eclision grid that shimmered with an eerie silver light as it absorbed the energy of the blaster bolts. Even as the man ducked and rolled to avoid a bolt catching his head, his foot slipped and he skidded face-first into the grid--

White lightning arced from the screen through the man's body, and he fell back with an agonized scream that abruptly cut off, jerking and twitching for a few moments before lying still. The man's dying noises stood in stark contrast to the high-pitched turret chatter of targets acquired, the clear superiority of the New Order, and wishes of eternal life for the Emperor even as their victim's life bled away at their feet.

"There are those whose sole purpose in life is to serve as warnings to others," the unmoved scientist remarked after the man's twitching corpse had finally subsided, his expression unchanged. 

Static. 

Luke buried his face in his hands, willing himself not to cry. To let her see how badly shaken he was gave her even more power over him. _Breathe,_ he told himself. _A Jedi is calm. At peace. One with the Force. I can't win if I give into hate._

It was tempting, though. If he were to yield to his darker instincts, could he tear the walls apart, rip the corridors to shreds, pull himself out by brute force? Or would he just get himself killed by knocking the whole place down around him? The risks--both spiritual and physical--outweighed any possible benefits. 

Giving into exhaustion, though, sounded _wonderful_. But he was afraid that if he gave up and stopped moving, he might never get up again. Or, worse, the Will might find some exceptionally unpleasant way to motivate him. 

When the door swished open at last, Luke found himself staring straight at the eclision grid blocking his path. It turned out, of course, that the portal device let you bypass them if you were clever about their placement. 

"Very impressive," said the Will when he had finished. "Please note that any appearance of danger is merely a device to enhance your testing experience." 

Luke ground his teeth and didn't answer. 

*** 

After a long walk down an empty, windowless corridor, he looked up to see a clear tube extending from an open vent in the ceiling, though the end was solidly metal. There was a Weighted Storage Cube at the top, waiting to be released for use in the next test. It was indistinguishable from all the other grey boxes he'd used before--only instead of solid grey, it had a disturbing life-like graphic of a human heart on each side. 

Luke tensed. He knew from experience that his approach would trigger the cube to fall, opening the metal cap for the briefest second. If Luke could jump high enough--and fast enough--before it closed, he might be able to get out of here at last. With all his injuries, it would be a near thing, but he had to try--

Even as the vent opened and Luke jumped, he knew it wouldn't work. The Force was a powerful ally, but there were limits to how fast he could move even under the best of circumstances. The cube fell, he rose, the vent began to close--

\--and he smacked his head into the closed vent and fell to the floor with a thud, thankfully missing a collision with the cube in the process. 

"The Vital Apparatus Vent will deliver a Weighed Companion Cube in three, two, one," said the Will, her voice echoing into the silence. No doubt the delay was deliberate. "This Weighed Companion Cube will accompany you through the test chamber. Please take care of it." 

With a muttered curse, Luke rubbed his head, and forced himself upright again. He eyed the cube warily, sensing another trap, but there didn't seem to be any way out of it. He reached out to touch it--

 _A human woman stood before him, her flight suit torn and ragged, bleeding from a cut on her forehead, carrying herself with such grace and poise and calm that he would trust her with his life and ask no questions. Loose strands of her long hair flew out in every direction from the tight braid she'd bound them in, and she brushed one impatiently away from her face. Breathing hard as if from some great exertion, she reached for the lightsaber at her belt. With a buzzing hiss, a blazing yellow blade ignited--_

With a shout, Luke jerked his hand back. He was alone in the empty corridor with the cube, with no one but the invisible, insidious presence of the Will for company. 

"Please note that common side effects of Imperial Science Enrichment Center testing include superstition, perceiving inanimate objects as alive, and hallucinations. The Enrichment Center reminds you the Weighed Companion Cube will never threaten to stab you, and, in fact, cannot speak."

He couldn't take his eyes off the cube. Was this another one of _her_ tricks? Had he witnessed a true vision of a Jedi-- _here_ of all places? Or was it a hallucination from the stress and fatigue and the all-too-probable brain damage? 

Slowly, hesitantly, he extended his hand and brushed his fingers against the cube. 

Nothing happened. 

No. That wasn't right. There was something about the cube that was truly different than the others. It was--dormant. Quiescent. As if, like a seed or a spore, it was only waiting for the right conditions for it to burst forward into life. 

The cube was--comforting, somehow, in a way that defied all expectations, like an old friend he hadn't seen in years and had completely forgotten until this very moment. It _recognized_ him on some deep, intimate level, as someone worthy of its trust. 

_A holocron?_ he wondered. He'd found similar cube-shaped devices in the wreckage of the _Chu'unthor_ on Dathomir, and scattered here and there across various worlds, tucked away in secret places where the Empire could not destroy them. This one was larger than most he'd encountered and yet--

\--could it be that some Jedi of the Old Republic had been trapped here, forced to run this gauntlet of tests--and had worked some hidden message or meaning into this seemingly innocuous device? 

"Hey," he whispered, as he settled next to the cube and leaned his cheek against the cool, smooth surface. "Who are you? Can you hear me? I--" 

"The Enrichment Center reminds you that the Weighed Companion Cube cannot speak," said the Will. "In the event that the Weighed Companion Cube speaks to you, please disregard its advice."

Was she playing with him? Was this all another game? Or was there something in the cube that she didn't want him to hear, even if she wouldn't admit it? 

Many holocrons he'd found had gatekeepers, who could sense the presence of those who touched them, and offer or withhold information based on their perceptions of the holder's skill and experience. If he could wake the gatekeeper, or convince it to trust him--

\--he might have found a friend at last. An ally. A ghost from the past, in the most unlikeliest of places. 

_My name is Luke Skywalker,_ he thought as hard as he could at the cube. _Can you hear me? Wake up. Wake up. I know you were here once. I saw you. Can you help me?_

Mindful of his beleaguered body, he slowly got to his feet, and continued down the corridor. Cradling the cube in the crook of his free arm, he bent his mind to the task of coaxing it to yield its secrets and speak to him. 

***

This chamber was a complicated one, and he went as slowly as he dared. Part of his sluggishness was from genuine exhaustion, but mostly it was due to distraction. The bulk of his attention was now fixated on getting a reaction-- _any_ reaction--from the cube. The thought of abandoning a potential holocron before he'd unlocked its secrets was unbearable--especially since it was unlikely the Will would let him take it out of the testing chamber this time. 

But this one was special, right? She'd even said as much. So maybe--just maybe--she'd let him keep it--

As usual, the only way to open the exit door was to place the cube on a button across the room to trigger the unlatching mechanism. But instead of walking through the doorway, he waited, staring up at the camera on the wall with grim defiance. 

"You did it," the Will agreed, though his achievement held no particular pleasure for her. "The Weighed Companion Cube certainly gave you good luck. However, it cannot accompany you for the remainder of the tests, and unfortunately must be euthanized." 

Luke's jaw dropped. _What_?

"Please escort your Weighed Companion Cube to the nearest Emergency Intelligence Incinerator," she said. 

It had always been a trap. He should have seen that from the beginning. Why else would she special out a cube like this? And even though he should have known better, he'd let himself be drawn up in his fantasies, and care about something she had planned from the beginning to take away from him.

Luke wouldn't care about the cube at all if he hadn't had that vision of the Jedi when he touched-- 

He looked around. In place of the turbolift, going through the now-open doorway led him into a blank-walled room with another door set to one side. There was a small white console in the corner, with a single red button. Next it was a small, closed receptacle, surrounded by vivid pictographs on the floor that told him this must be the Emergency Intelligence Incinerator the Will had referred to. 

He pressed the button on the console. The receptacle opened, revealing a tube too small for him to crawl through that presumably lead to the incinerator. Judging from the intense heat that radiated outward, the furnace was currently active. 

He couldn't do this. Even if the cube was useless to him, it was the only thing he'd encountered in this living hell that had offered him even a chance at hope. He might have hallucinated the Jedi, but would he hallucinate the quiet intuition that there was much more to the cube than met the eye? Or were the effects of the concussion and the adrenaline and pain of his ordeal beginning to push him over the edge and into madness? 

_What is real?_ he wondered, as the room swam before his eyes. He half-hoped he would pass out and force the Will to deal his refusal to play her game. Or would she call his bluff, let him die here in this endless maze of corridors, where no one would ever find him? 

_I have to survive. I have to survive no matter how much it takes._

_I have to beat this thing. I can't let her win._

It was only a cube, after all. Even if it _was_ a holocron, it wouldn't be sentient. It might talk, yes, but it would only be a recording, a ghost, an echo from times long past. There might be priceless knowledge contained within it, yes, but--was it worth his life?

 _Please_ , he begged it silently. He didn't dare speak aloud for fear that the Will would hear, and mock him for his desperation. _Give me some sign that you're awake. Anything. Please. Or else I'll be forced to destroy you._

There was no response from the cube. 

"If your Weighed Companion Cube could talk--and the Enrichment Center takes the opportunity to remind you it cannot talk--it would tell you to go on without it because it would rather die in a fire than become a burden to you. Rest assured that a panel of well-known ethicists have absolved any Imperial Science Enrichment Center designers, employees, and test subjects, of any moral responsibility for the Companion Cube Euthanizing Process." 

Hysteria rose within him, though his laugh emerged more like a cough. This was all too absurd. Now the Empire was lecturing _him_ about moral responsibility? 

_Answer me, damn it! Answer me!,_ he hissed at the cube. _Why don't you *answer* me?!_

He shook it violently, turning it over and over again in his hands, as if to rip its secrets out by force. Anger and frustration filled him, spilled over in fierce, hot snarls at this latest betrayal. _ANSWER ME! I NEED YOU! DON'T LEAVE ME *ALONE*--!_

He stopped short. That was it. That was precisely it. He didn't want to be alone. He was tired of fighting, tired of holding himself together, tired of having no one else to rely on. 

But he was alone. 

The cube was an inert lump of metal in his hands, cold and silent in the sterile chamber. 

He took a deep breath, and tossed it into the fire. It didn't scream or recoil in agony. It was simply... gone. The receptacle closed after it, and the real exit opened as promised. 

"You euthanized your Companion Cube faster than any test subject on record," said the Will as he stepped through the open doorway into the lift. "Congratulations... murderer."

It was a lie. It was all a lie. Everything she'd ever said to him was a lie from the beginning. Nothing from the Empire could be trusted. 

But he couldn't escape the nagging sensation that on some level, she was more right than she knew.


	4. Chapter 4

There had been a time before testing, but Luke couldn't remember it now. His entire existence had been reduced to portals, and there was nothing outside of them anymore. His eye was trained to see them, his hand was poised to shoot them, and his body moved through them without hesitation. He was a machine, automatic and precise; he did what was in front of him and no more. No food, no water, no rest, no sleep. Only the portals, the orange and the blue, shimmering, vanishing, linking distant spaces in impossible contortions that made a mockery of his prior views of reality. 

His will clashed with hers, for all these endless seconds added up to minutes added up to hours (days? weeks?), an endless mountain of time that was wearing him down from the weight. He was a pawn on her dejarik board, and she was winning the vast and unfathomable contest they played together. 

No escape now, but inward. No escape, but into the Force. 

Without the Force, he would have died long ago--from shock, from sepsis, from the brain damage, from trauma, from exhaustion, from thirst, from isolation and sensory deprivation. Without the Force, he would have given up, would have laid down and died long ago, letting the acid eat away his bones or a turret's laser snipe him from a distance. Without the Force, he would be cold, dense, corporeal, not light, effortless spirit floating through the maze without fear or guilt or anxiety to hold him back. 

_Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter,_ Yoda had told him once, pinching the muscles of Luke's arm in disdain. Back then, of course, Luke had doubted that assertion, the way he doubted everything the little Jedi master told him, but time had proved Yoda right in this along with everything else. Doubting that truth seemed absurd now that he lived it in every waking moment of this latest phase of his existence.

So attuned now was he to the intricacies of his inner workings, the frantic task of keeping everything from falling apart in spite of the tremendous hurdles placed before him, that everything was clear to him, and nothing escaped his sight. Skin-flesh-bone-marrow-cells-molecules, all layers, all levels, all at once, blurred together into an indistinguishable smear of light that, refracting into multiplicity and back again. 

The boundaries between his being and everything else in existence slowly dissolved, eroded by the endless strain of the tests. To stay alive, he must burn, and no other fuel remained but his own body and mind, and he must burn them, too. As Luke seeped away, the Force flowed in like a rushing river to fill the gaps, and he drifted along in its current. There was still pain, but it no longer had much meaning with the Force pooling inside and outside, cooling him, comforting him, and buffering him against the elements. 

The Force was his food, his water, his rest, his healing, and there was no end to their union. Perhaps Luke would be lost, wasted away to a worn-out shell that would soon lay down and die, but the Force would go on, heedless of the loss. Giving in to this inevitability was easier than fighting it. 

But tenacious stubbornness--the instinct to keep on living, even when living made no sense--ran even deeper than he knew. And when the Will betrayed him for the final time, he lost the comfort of that vision of unity and wholeness and snapped into the material realm again, the everyday world where suffering reigned. 

He'd been so close to slipping away when she pulled him back. She would regret that decision later, and so would he. 

***

"Welcome to the final test," the Will said by way of introduction. "When you are done, you will drop the device in the Equipment Recovery Annex. Enrichment Center regulations require both hands to be empty before rhyscate can be serveddddddddd." The last word slurred into unintelligible reverberations, as if the equipment had undergone a sudden failure. 

These had been happening more and more frequently of late, and Luke waited with dreamy patience for her to finish her thought. But when no further instructions were forthcoming, he set to work with numb efficiency through the chamber, slicing his way through walls and dimensions, weaving in and out of the space in ways that defied ordinary expectations until he landed on a transparent platform, with a repulsorlift underneath to lift it several feet in the air. 

The platform moved at a steady clip through a corridor so narrow he could touch both walls by fully extended his arms. Below it was an acid pool to keep him from prematurely abandoning his perch before the test wanted him to. All of the walls were the same white blocky panels that he could use for portals, but as of yet, there was no obvious direction for him to go if he used them. So he waited, in that glassy trance that served as a thin substitute for rest, and let the square carry him along to the end. 

It would be good to rest. He couldn't imagine what it might be like to set the portal device down and do something else for a while, but it seemed nice enough. Of course, this was probably another trick to wear him down, but there wasn't much left to wear down anymore. He wasn't sure if she would bother now that he was so close to the edge. 

The rhyscate was unlikely, despite all the protestations to the contrary, but it was just weirdly specific enough to be real. Either way, the thought made him salivate. He didn't even _like_ rhyscate much--Han had shared some on all the appropriate Corellian holidays, and Luke had privately considered it to be an acquired taste--but no matter how overloaded with spice and vweilu nuts and whiskey, he would devour it all in a heartbeat if given the opportunity and not complain. 

Relief from the endless cravings was another reason to slip deeper into the Force and he pulled it over himself like a half-wakened sleeper in the night. Burrowing deeper into its comforting embrace took him far away from the hunger pangs until they faded away and his mind was empty and still again. 

He drifted for a long time. Every now and then there were obstacles - a solitary turret, a steady stream of laser bolts, a wall blocking his path - and the answer was always the same: position the two linked portals to get around it, landing back on the moving platform and not in the acid pool. None of these needed any real thought; they simply happened. _He_ did it, but he didn't have to waste his time _thinking_ about them. He could simply... drift. 

At last, he reached a wall with a giant placard plastered across it: a crude, blocky pictograph that was meant to represent a pastry. 

"Congratulations," the Will said tonelessly. "The test is now over. All essential Imperial Science Enrichment Center equipment remains operational at temperatures up to 4,000 degrees Kelvin. Rest assured there is absolutely no chance of a dangerous equipment malfunction prior to your victory candescence." 

_Wait--what?_

The platform sped up as it turned the corner with a sudden jerk. The passageway opened up around him in all directions, to reveal a vast chamber with a ceiling so high he couldn't see the top from where he stood. All of the walls were dark now, the sort of surface he'd come to disdain because they couldn't hold a portal, and usually ignored. But the biggest surprise was the wall of flames that loomed ahead, twenty meters away and coming on fast. 

This must be the Emergency Intelligence Incinerator, he realized as he stared in mounting horror at the fate she'd planned for him. He'd thought that name had been nothing more than a cruel bureaucratic joke--when it fact it was _exactly that_. Another fancy name for a crematorium. 

"Your participation has been extremely beneficial to the Empire. We appreciate your loyal service. Good bye." 

He was still in shock. He was frozen, helpless on the platform, portal device clenched in his hand as he watched his death approach and could do nothing. All his reactions were numbed, and every motion was thick and slow, as if moving at a much higher gravity than the human ideal. 

It had been so quick, so sudden, so _calm_ , he hadn't seen it coming. So _civilized_ , even. 

He craned his neck around to stare behind him, searching for a way out. Nothing. As the platform approached the fire, the acid had dried up underneath him and the floor was now bare, but there was nothing he could use to escape. The heat was so intense now, he could barely stand it. He squinted ahead as the fire drew closer--

\--and realized the walls around the fire itself were pale white, the kind that would hold a portal. But that in itself was useless if he didn't have anywhere safe to _go_ \--

Something dark and metallic shimmered behind the wall of fire, up and slightly to the left. A maintenance catwalk, for when the furnace was shut down. 

And that wall behind _that_ was gleaming white. 

He didn't stop to think. Something snarling and feral took over and saved him the trouble--and with it, his life. He shot the first portal through the wall of fire, smashing up into the wall with hazy blue ripples. The next shot was into the wall to his left, slightly ahead of where the platform currently was, so that by the time he jumped, the arc of his leap would carry him straight to it-- 

He didn't question whether the Force was with him, because the Force had been his only companion for so long now that all doubt was a thing of the past. He couldn't even say that _he_ was the one who jumped now. The _Force_ stretched between two points in space and abruptly they were together and took Luke along for the ride-- 

\--and then he was through the portals and tumbling head over heels onto the catwalk, saved from a fall back into the incinerator only by the protective guardrail that slammed him back into a tangled heap, dizzy and reeling and smelling faintly of smoke, but alive.

(Mixed in with the smell of smoke was the tang of burning flesh and hair and he was aware, as if from a distance, of a great pain that adrenaline and the Force shielded him from for now, a gift for which he would pay dearly later, but there was no time for that now, no _time_ \--)

"Stop!" said the Will. "What are you doing? I--" It was the first time that Luke had ever heard her use that pronoun and she stammered violently, as if she'd violated a core tenet of her programming by doing so. When she spoke again, there was an eerie shift in her vocal register, as the perfect mechanical monotone was replaced by a dreamy, sing-song quality. 

"We are pleased that you made it through the final challenge where we pretended we were going to murder you. We are very pleased by your success. We are throwing a party in honor of your success." 

She was stalling for time. Any minute, she'd find some way to capture him unless he hurried. He got to his feet and headed down the catwalk away from the flames. 

"As promised, there will be rhyscate and grief counseling. Assume the Party Escort Submission Position by lying on your stomach with your arms at your side--" 

"Not on your _life_ ," Luke muttered, as he clambered to his feet. "Do you really think I'm that stupid?" 

"--and a Party Associate will arrive shortly to collect you for your party." 

Chills went down Luke's spine. Someone or something would be coming down soon, and he had to find a way to get out of here before they found him. Whatever human or droid she had to carry out her orders, he didn't want to be here to meet them--

The catwalk lead to a locked door, which refused to budge even when Luke jiggled the knob as hard as he could. No doubt this was the door through which the Party Associate would take to find him, so perhaps it was just as well. He craned his neck and looked up and around, searching for another option.

He was rewarded with the glimpse of a maintenance shaft fifty meters up on the other side of the chamber. He shot one portal into the wall across from the shaft and the second into the wall next to door in front of him and stepped through. 

Seconds later, he was crawling through the ventilation shaft. He was out of direct reach of the Will for now, but that didn't stop her from trying to talk to him. 

"Hello? Where are you? I know you're there. I can feel you here." 

Luke froze, but she kept on, oblivious to the effect of her words. "You haven't escaped, you know. You're not even going the right way--" 

He relaxed enough to keep moving. She was bluffing. She was scared. She wanted to draw him out, discourage him, slow him down enough for her to catch up to him. 

Only it wasn't going to work this time. 

The shaft wasn't much bigger than he was, but it didn't stay cramped for long. Soon he was walking in a wider place, and the walls had switched from metal to that same pale tile used in the testing rooms. A giant fan, its blades spinning wildly, blocked his path, but he was able to portal easily around it and keep moving. 

"You're not a good person. You know that, right?" the Will said. "That's why you're here, you know? Good people don't come here. The Empire has been so good to the galaxy, and to you. You're the ungrateful one, not appreciating everything we've done for you. We've been trying to _help_ you by letting you help _us--_ " 

Run. Run. He was lost in a maze of twisting corridors and shafts and it didn't matter where he went, because the only thing that mattered now was to find a place where that voice couldn't reach him--

"This is all your fault. It didn't have to be like this," said the Will, but she was fainter now, much fainter, as if she were shouting from far away. He quickened his pace. If he stopped now, he knew he wouldn't get up again. 

"Hello? Can you hear me? Hello--" 

He pushed deeper and deeper into the inner workings of the life-support systems, until at last she was nothing more than the distant whine of an angry tsi'l fly, yearning for his flesh and blood, but unable to get it. Only then did he collapse in a tangle of rusting pipes and crumbling wires in a corner and gave himself up completely to the loving, patient tenderness of the Force. 

He never expected to wake up as Luke again. There was so little left. 

***

He lay on the floor, curled up into a ball to block out the world, but Cray Mingla wouldn't let him rest. She knelt beside him, and dug her perfectly manicured nails--bright red to match her lipstick--into his shoulder. He writhed away, but she gripped him even harder, and he was too weak to evade her. She pried his head up, forcing him to meet her eyes. 

To his surprise, they were red-rimmed and puffy, out of keeping with the pristine white lab coat and the elegant grey pencil skirt and blue blouse she wore underneath. Her hair was neatly tied back in an elegant bun, and the string of pearls around her neck matched her earrings. It wasn't the crisp flight suit he remembered vaguely from before, but that was fine; this was a dream, after all, and she could dress herself however she liked. It was just that her clothes made him think of a high-powered attorney or a galactic lobbyist, not the innovative scientist and Jedi she truly was-- 

He thought, as he had at their first meeting, that she was beautiful. Of how she wore that beauty like a mask to hide the hidden depths underneath, and the power that dwelled within her. 

(Nichos, of course, was the one person she'd never hidden from--)

"Master Skywalker! Do you hear me? Master Skywalker?" 

What a bother, this whole teaching business. He could see now why Yoda had become a hermit after all. Why wouldn't she leave him alone and let him sleep? Didn't he deserve some rest after everything he'd been through. 

"Master Skywalker, I know you can hear me!" She shook him, and the sudden violence caught him off-guard, jolting him into unwanted alertness. "You can't leave me here like this! You can't leave me here _alone_! Not like this!" 

_But you have Nichos_ , he wanted to tell her, but his throat didn't work right anymore. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. _You don't need anything from me. There's nothing more I can teach you anyway. You were always too damn smart for me... Whatever it is, you'll figure it out, like you did with Nichos._

She was crying, he noticed after a moment. That wasn't good. He wanted to ask why she was crying, and then he realized it was because he was dying, and she didn't know what to do about it. 

_Death comes to us all,_ he would have said if he could speak. _It's nothing to be sad about._

_But it's not your time!_ another part of his mind argued. _*Listen* to yourself! Do you want to let the Will win after all?_

"Listen," Cray said through her sobs, echoing his own directive. "I know you're alive out there. I know you're out there. She doesn't know where you are, and it's driving her crazy. But I can't come to you. You have to find me. And she's watching me so closely now, you have to be quiet about it." 

He didn't like seeing her cry; it offended his sense of how the world should be. Even when Nichos had been diagnosed with that awful wasting disease, the one that had slowly paralyzed him and eventually killed him--she'd never cried. Not in front of him, at least. 

And she'd made a new body for Nichos, a droid body, and the two of them had transferred Nichos's spirit to the form that she'd prepared for him--

Where was Nichos, anyway? He should be here, by Cray's side, even if this was a dream. Is that why she was so upset? 

"Please find me," Cray begged, and Luke nodded because he didn't think she would stop crying unless he agreed. This seemed to work well, because she let go of him at last, and he drifted off aimlessly into the dark again. 

***

When his body started to hurt again, he was close to waking, which discouraged him. For a long time, he drifted in liminal, drowsy haze where nothing was quite in focus, until he could no longer put off the inevitable and woke up fully. He lay in the corner of the ventilation shaft where he had fallen, surrounded by a sluff of dead skin, hair and other miscellaneous bits his body had expelled while in the healing trance. 

He wasn't completely restored--his left leg was still a mess, and the concussion was still there--but the burns from the incinerator were gone, and many of his minor hurts had vanished completely. The edges of the world were no longer quite so fuzzy, and his mind was clearer now. 

But with those victories came unbearable thirst. His mouth was dry and parched, his lips cracked and bleeding. He'd grown up in the desert, hovering on the edge of dehydration, and he knew he must drink soon or die. The reason why he hadn't been able to speak to Cray in his dream was because his throat was too parched. There was no way he could make a sound.

Cray. She'd survived the crash. She was out there, trying to find him. She needed him. 

_Cray_! 

He jerked upright, and regretted it instantly. He still had the portal device on his right arm, which made movement more challenging, but he did his best to crawl forward to get closer to the network of pipes and wires that lined the walls and ceiling of the ventilation shaft. He was too dizzy and sick to stand upright just yet. 

There was water here, if only he could find it. All of the life-support systems, after all, ran through here, regardless of whether they were deep in space, or underground, or in some gigantic facility on some forgotten moon or Imperial-controlled planet. There had to be water, because water was _life_ \--

As he hoped, the pale blue pipe marked the water line. He followed it with his eyes as he set off randomly down the shaft, searching for any breaks or leaks that would yield that precious liquid--

If he'd had his lightsaber, the ordeal would have been over in seconds, but he didn't, and so it took all his patience and endurance to find a spot where a pipe had snapped out of alignment and a small puddle had formed underneath. From there, it was simple--not easy, but simple--to tug further on the pipe and let the steady drip-drip-drip expand into a heavier flow-- 

Not even on Tatooine had water ever tasted this good, he thought, lapping it up directly from the impromptu faucet like the injured animal he was. He drank and drank for a long time, until he remembered that too mu sch, too fast would kill him, and then he backed off. As long as he was up here--as long as he was hidden from the Will--he could drink at his leisure. 

The water restored him back to himself, as did the clumsy sponge bath he took when he'd had his fill of drinking. It was nowhere near enough to cleanse him of the dirt and sweat and blood, but it did wonders for his spirit. 

Shaking out his damp hair as best he could, Luke saw a gleam of silver-white in his peripheral vision, and turned to investigate. The ventilation shaft was poorly lit, but his eyes had long since adjusted to the dimness provided by the tiny glow-panels affixed to the sides. 

Blocky Aurebesh characters were scratched out on the wall across from him. THE RHYSCATE IS A LIE, they warned him. 

He stared, not knowing what else to do, or what to think about this development. "I knew that," he said at last, and laughed in spite of himself. 

His laughter broke the silence, and with it, the grim earnestness he'd depended on for his survival. Everything that had happened to him was completely absurd, and the mysterious warning--delivered far, far too late--was the icing on the non-existence rhyscate. 

But it restored him to himself--and with it, his drive for life and action. He was still hungry, yes, but he'd slept for a good long while, and was no longer thirsty, and the Will hadn't found him yet. And maybe Cray was out there, searching for him, and he would find her and break her out of this terrible place. 

What had she told him? _I can't come to you. You have to find me._ That didn't bode well. 

_She's watching me so closely now._

It was good to have a goal again, one that didn't necessarily involve finding the most expedient portal route through a minefield. He set off down the ventilation shaft, limping on his wounded leg, pausing now and then to lean against the wall when vertigo threatened to bring him down. Whatever terrible things the Will had done or was currently doing to his student, he'd find out and put a stop to them like the good Jedi master he was. 

He wasn't quite surely how exactly he'd manage that, of course, but no doubt he'd figure it out as he went along. 

_She doesn't know where you are, and it's driving her crazy,_ Cray had told him in his dream. 

He bared his teeth in a smile. Oh, yes. Let her be very, very angry indeed. And anxious. And nervous. And scared. As well she should be. 

Luke Skywalker was coming for her.


	5. Chapter 5

The air ducts were long and narrow, barely tall enough for him to stand upright. Like the testing chambers, they were functional, but in decline; the only light was the dim flare of glowpanels every few meters, plunging everything else in dense and hazy shadows. Broken wires dangled from huge bundles snaking across the floor and ceiling, and corroded pipes oozed mysterious liquids that puddled on the floor, occasionally dissolving it. 

Even without leakage of coolants and other fluids to accelerate the process, he had to tread carefully over the cracks and gouges in the metal, lest he fall through. He peered through one of them, only to see a the dull, blocky white outline of an eerily familiar testing chamber, and quickly moved away.

He leaned on a length of broken pipe in his left hand, which helped keep the weight off his injured leg. His right hand clenched the portal gun, unable to let it go even for a moment. It wasn't immediately useful in the life support system, but it had saved his life far too many times for him to cast it away now. No doubt the New Republic would find it interesting upon his return, too. 

The graffiti increased as he moved further up into the ductwork. Miniature turrets aimed their single eyes at each other in pitched battles along the walls, while Weighed Storage Cubes tumbled from tubes that wound up and over doorways. An injunction to HELP, HELP was followed by the equally unsettling NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE YOU, and--a little later--BE YOUR OWN SAVIOR. Despite himself, he often paused to study the mysterious messages, as if confronted with the clues to a vast, complex puzzle whose solutions eluded him.

Now and then he passed openings in the vents that lead back into the main facility. Sometimes he stared into vast abysses that stretched for thousands of meters in both directions, like the shaft where he'd battled Vader in the bowels of Cloud City. Sometimes he hung suspended over testing chambers he recognized; sometimes over empty offices and meeting rooms with the Imperial logo plastered over everything. He saw kilometers of empty hallways and deserted living quarters, cleaning droids bustling to and fro over the slightest hint of dust only to retreat back into the walls when their task was complete. There were rooms full of identical single-eyed turrets that walked on their tripod legs and chattered to each other with high-pitched human voices. 

Once, he looked down to find himself over a vast, abandoned droid factory, the arms and sides of some proto-ancestor of the turrets stretched out lifeless on a conveyor belt, eerily human in their disassembled state. Later, he discovered constructor droids arc-welding machinery for some unknown purpose, and later still, a vast pile of stormtrooper helmets in some sort of warehouse, stacked neatly a hundred meters below. He saw weighed Storage Cubes zipped through large clear vacuum tubes, as they were ferried to wherever it was they were needed, and abandoned medical bays with the 2-1B medical droids ripped out of the walls and smashed to pieces on the floor amidst the sticky mess of decaying bacta. 

He saw turrets under construction, only sometimes the process misfired, and they were welded together with Weighed Storage Cubes while they screamed and pleaded for mercy. Once he looked down to see a bustling conveyor belt lined with these monstrosities, writhing as they approached the smelters that would end their suffering by temporarily increasing it. 

"Turret redemption line. Please do not engage with turrets heading towards redemption," an automatic voice--not the Will's--said over the loudspeaker. Luke jerked his head away and quickly moved on. 

Throughout it all, he saw no windows or portholes, and no signs of any life, sentient or otherwise. There was nothing that could tell him whether he was deep underground, on the surface of a planet, or in space. There were no habitable planets in the Moonflower Nebula, which made Luke think he was still in space. That assumed, of course, his captors hadn't taken him elsewhere after they'd crippled his ship in the asteroid field... and who knows how long he'd been in suspension? At least two months, if his scattered memories of the medical center could be trusted... 

The scale of the place was both awe-inspiring and discouraging. Its architecture and aesthetic harkened back to the Death Star, though he hadn't spent much time exploring it in his rush to rescue Leia and get out with his skin intact. He hoped the Imperial Science Enrichment Center didn't boast any planet-destroying lasers or similarly extravagant hardware along with its other attractions. 

He shook his head and kept going. He didn't know where he was going, or how to find Cray, but whenever a choice presented itself, he always took the one that lead upwards. He discovered each level was roughly symmetrical, with life-support systems spiraling out in all directions from centralized shafts. Rungs soldered into the walls allowed him to climb from level to level, though his injured leg made the simple task more challenging. But levitation seemed like a bad idea with so much of his attention devoted to self-healing, so he made the best of it. Even with the braces to soften the landings, he didn't want to fall any more than he had to. 

Now and then, he caught echoes of the Will, imploring him to return now that he had made his point, or insulting his worth as a human being. He grinned fiercely and imagined her frustration and her fury, which helped to revive him when his energy flagged. 

On a sudden hunch, he slowed his pace. Here on the upper levels, the passageways were taller, and he could walk more or less upright, as long as he stayed mindful of the bulkheads. The glowpanels were brighter here, and the air was fresher--or perhaps that was only an illusion. A glimpse outside told him he had found living quarters for Enrichment Center staff, though there was still no sign of life or movement in any of the rooms or corridors.

The graffiti in the airshaft was thick here. Over and over again, THE RHYSCATE IS A LIE had been painstakingly scratched out on the durasteel with a shard of metal, glowing brighter in the darkness. Next to it was a sketch of a security camera, with the caption, SHE'S WATCHING YOU. Outlines of turrets fired away at vague and indistinguishable blurs said to represent TRUTH, JUSTICE, and THE IMPERIAL WAY. A smaller blur, off to one side, was marked as ME. Throughout it all, the simple, blocky form of the Weighed Companion Cube spun in a thousand different angles and configurations, each incarnation duly marked with a stylized human heart on each side. 

He turned down the next side corridor, only to discover it ended abruptly a few meters out from the main passage. A makeshift bed, rumpled, torn and stained, marked the camp of the mysterious artist, who had long since abandoned her post. 

On the wall over the bed, she'd drawn a self-portrait; he recognized her at once as the Jedi from his vision. Radiating implacable serenity, she sat naked in cross-legged meditation, her hands on her knees in a mudra of concentrated bliss as a Weighed Companion Cube floated in mid-air at the level of her heart. FIND ME AT THE HEART OF IT ALL, blazed the caption on sides of the cube. She was outlined in a halo of elegant Aurebesh calligraphy--SAFE SECURE SECRETS INDESTRUCTIBLE CORE OPEN SURVIVAL SURVIVAL SURVIVAL--rounded off with the reminder that THE FORCE IS ALWAYS WITH YOU NO MATTER HOW ALONE YOU ARE. 

Her other words, scattered around the room, were less comforting. IF YOU'RE READING THIS, THEN I HAVE FAILED. I MUST DESTROY THIS PLACE OR DIE. THERE IS NO TURNING BACK. 

Set off to one side were a vast series of tiny scratches, blocked in groups of five. It took him a moment to realize those were tally marks--no doubt used to mark her time here. Underneath it was the odd injunction, HOLD ME TO YOUR HEART, which was was important enough to merit several underlines for added emphasis. 

Pawing through the filthy bedding, he found half a dozen ration bars with their packaging still intact. They were thirty years old, and hopelessly stale, but he devoured them anyway without hesitation. He slapped the equally expired bacta patches onto the wound in his leg, though he doubted any of the gel was still active. A leaky water pipe had formed a deep pool in the corner--no doubt why she had chosen this sub-corridor as her base of operations--and he drank deeply from a crude cup the Jedi had made from a curved piece of metal. 

Faintly, as if from a great distance, he sensed the same presence he'd glimpsed in that all too brief vision in the Companion Cube. Joyous laughter, comforting and warm, despite the grim circumstances; firm compassion and calm that spoke of a lifetime of deep training and a wholehearted embrace of all that was good. 

She'd been a prisoner here once, a long time ago. Like him, she'd escaped and found her way here--but what had happened to her after that? 

"I wish I could have known you," he whispered to the darkness, hoping for an answer. 

But none came. No vision flickered in his sight, no voices whispered from the shadows. All was quiet except for the sound of his own breathing and the dull wheeze of the life support systems. Not even a ghost would linger here in this desolate place if given the choice. Luke couldn't blame her for passing on, but he wished she had left something more solid for him, something he could _use_ \--

But she had, he realized with a start. It hadn't been his imagination; she'd left a message for him in the Weighed Companion Cube. Only he hadn't had been able to unlock it before the Will had forced him to destroy it. No doubt it had contained every story, every detail he could want. Instead, he'd thrown it into the incinerator himself. 

His heart ached and burst under the strain. He cried then, as he could not in the testing chambers while the Will was watching. He knelt where the Jedi had slept so many decades before and sobbed, mourning the needless suffering the two of them had endured, and the lost opportunities for connection. He cried--gasping, choking moans--until there were no more tears left and he lay trembling with relief from the much-needed catharsis. All the while the Jedi's self-portrait gazed down at him, urging steadiness, calm--and justice. 

When he rose again, his leg and head still ached, and his eyes were red and puffy, but he moved with new energy, inspired by the Jedi's example. Though she'd failed to destroy this place thirty years ago, she had not died in vain. He had missed whatever secrets she'd hidden in the Companion Cube, but her art and her words had reached him across the lifetime that separated them. Even after her death, she encouraged him to go on. 

He would finish her task himself--and hopefully avoid her fate in the process. 

***

Some indeterminable time later, as he prowled the corridors in search of a direction for his vengeance, he heard a familiar voice in the corridor outside. He stopped dead in his tracks and listened. 

"--seventy-four standard days, fifteen hours, six minutes and thirty-seven seconds since we arrived at this miserable place, and no sign we will be ever be rescued," sighed the unmistakable voice of C-3P0 with his usual pessimistic outlook. "Who knows what's happened to Master Luke now? Even though he's managed to escape from the testing chambers--he's quite resourceful for a human being, after all--there's been no sign of him ever since. Perhaps all that time in suspension resulted in permanent brain damage and he no longer remembers me--" 

Luke peeked out of the air vent to see a wide, open corridor with lined with the large white tiles. Threepio's disembodied head hung suspended from a metal track stretched along the ceiling, puttering along as best it could under the circumstances. Apparently, his memory of their encounter in the medical center hadn't been a hallucination after all. 

He dared not call out to Threepio and risk drawing the Will's attention to his hiding place. The protocol droid wasn't known for subtlety at the best of times, and especially not when startled. Nor did Luke care to venture out into the corridors himself. 

Fortunately, since both the walls and ceilings here would hold portals, there was a better option. 

He shot the first one into the wall next to the air shaft opening, within easy reach of where he sat. Threepio's head was still chugging gamely along on its track, and it was a simple matter to shoot a second portal into the ceiling precisely at the spot where Threepio's head was. Before the droid could react, Luke reached his free hand through the linked portals and wrenched Threepio's head off the track and back into his lap. Even as Threepio screamed--a high-pitched, obnoxiously off-key wail--Luke tilted the portal device and fired at random into the wall of the ventilation shaft, obliterating any trace of his activities in the corridor. 

" _Quiet,_ " Luke hissed, but Threepio ignored him, shouting for help from Master Luke and heaping curses on his unknown assailant. Even burying the droid's head in his chest didn't muffle the noise, so with a sigh, he scuttled away up the shaft as quickly as he could. The last thing he wanted was for the Will to overhear the kerfuffle and decide to investigate.

It took several minutes and endless repetitions of "It's all right, Threepio, it's all right, it's me," before the protocol droid was convinced of his rescuer's true identity. At that point, he switched to equally effusive--but no less exhausting--praise of Luke's bravery and daring. 

"Oh, Master Luke, I'm simply delighted to see you without any further brain damage! This whole business since you were captured has been dreadful for me, simply dreadful. Now that you're here, I'm sure you'll put a stop to the whole business and restore me to my proper form. They've turned me into a laughingstock! I shudder to think what Artoo would say if he were here (and with good reason). I look ridiculous, simply ridiculous--" 

"Yes, I see that," Luke said absently, tearing a string of wires off of the wall and using them to tie Threepio's head around his waist. Between the portal device and the pipe he used as a crutch, his hands were occupied enough as it was. "Was it the Will who did this to you?" 

Threepio paused in mid-sentence, but only to switch gears. "Oh, yes, Master Luke. After you and Mistress Cray were unconscious, she turned her attention to me. But she wasn't interested in anything _I_ had to say--she claimed I was too stupid to be any threat to the ship, and she would permit me to remain for the purposes of comic relief as long as I kept myself out of trouble. And I'm afraid I've been like this every since--" 

"Ship? What ship?" Conversations with Threepio were always challenging, because the droid usually had the answers--but only if you knew precisely how to ask for them. 

"Ah, yes, I was just getting to that. The Imperial Science Enrichment Center is located within the _Eye of Palpatine_ , a secret Imperial warship constructed out of an asteroid of gigantic proportions nearly thirty years ago," Threepio said. "It awakened when it detected the presence of our ship and attacked." 

An asteroid. A ship carved out of an asteroid. That would explain why he'd never seen the vessel that had crippled the _Huntbird_ , then. He hadn't expected an asteroid to open fire. It was a perfect disguise.

"The Will is responsible not only for all research and development of the Imperial Science Enrichment Center, but also the ship itself," Threepio continued, oblivious to the stunned expression on Luke's face. "I must say, one of the strongest and most original artificial intelligences I have ever encountered. _Rather_ like dealing with a human, I must say." 

He was still stuck on another revelation. "What do you mean 'it awakened'?" 

"Well, Master Luke, as far as I can determine, the _Eye of Palpatine_ and all its electronic systems were temporarily deactivated shortly after the initial launch of the vessel some thirty years ago. However, normal operations resumed immediately after our ship was detected and the automatic defense systems determined us to be a threat." 

The Jedi. She hadn't destroyed the ship as she'd hoped, but she'd shut it down and kept it from harming anyone--at least, until Luke had shown up with his students and started poking around. If only he'd known... 

He took a deep breath, forced himself back to calm. Well, there was no going back now. And now that he'd found Threepio, maybe the droid could help him--

"Threepio, do you know where Cray is?" 

If the droid was disturbed by the sudden change of subject, he didn't show it. "Oh, _yes_. She and Master Nichos were assigned quarters on Level 21, on the D deck. But that's a long way from where I was when you found me--"

Better and better. "Do you know how to get there?" 

"Why, yes. I have downloaded all of the maps of the ship, or at least everything the Will has made available to me--" 

Something flashed in Luke's peripheral vision--as if someone out of the corner of his eye had nudged him, whispering, _Hey. Come over here. Look at this._ As if there was something nearby that he demanded his attention, something he'd regret if he missed it in his haste to locate Cray--

"Threepio," said Luke, his head spinning from the droid's endless chatter. There was no chance of getting him to slow down now that he had an audience. "Hold off a second. I want to check something out."

Ignoring Threepio's bewildered objections, he set off down the corridor after the feeling. 

***

Threepio was convinced that Luke's erratic behavior was the result of too much time in suspension, and kept muttering darkly about the fragility of human beings and their propensity for brain damage. Luke ignored him, his attention focused on the delicate intuition leading him onward. 

He knew he'd found what he was seeking when the corridor dead-ended at a series of blast doors that had been permanently wedged open by pieces of neatly sliced rubble. He stepped through to find himself in a large room whose ceiling opened at its center to a long, dark shaft leading upward to what could only be a massive computer core. Cables snarled together in complicated tangles, snaking over power lines and coolant tubes up into the shaft. This vast webwork radiated out from the ship's heart, sucking in and sucking out with equal measure. To prevent unauthorized meddling, an eclision grid stretched across the shaft's opening, shimmering in the dim light of the glowpanels with serene malice. 

But even without the tug of the Force, he would have known he was in the right place because the Jedi's corpse lay sprawled across the floor underneath the shaft where she had fallen so many years before. In the cool, sterile darkness of the air shaft, her flesh had dried, instead of rotting, mummifying her to a thin, pale specter of her living self. But her dark brown hair and flight suit were still surprisingly untouched three decades after her death. There wasn't even any dust. 

She lay on her stomach, as if she'd fallen from a great height. This made no sense before he realized that she had somehow managed to punch her way through the grid, far enough to cripple the Will--only to lose control and fall back down the shaft again before she could initiate the self-destruct. It was the second pass through the grid, coupled with the fall, that had killed her. 

"Oh, my," said Threepio, from his place at Luke's waist, his bright mechanical eyes fixated on the body. "Oh, I say. Master Luke, this is very unsettling--" 

The droid's complaint cut off abruptly as Luke stumbled over something loose on the floor that went skittering away in the dark. He fell with a muffled thud and a louder curse, losing his grip on the pipe he used as a crutch in the process. Several minutes later, after he'd managed to pull himself off the floor and ensure that nothing new was broken--and soothed an anxious Threepio that there was no further damage to his cerebral casing--he bent down to retrieve it. It had rolled across the smooth durasteel surface of the air shaft, where it lay next to the small cylindrical object that he'd tripped over.

He stopped short. "I don't believe it," he whispered. 

It was a lightsaber.


	6. Chapter 6

It was not the weapon he had painstakingly handcrafted for himself in the aftermath of Bespin. Even as his fingers brushed it, he knew it had belonged to the woman who lay dead on the floor behind him; the lightsaber resonated with that same calm, familiar presence he had sensed from the Companion Cube. 

As with the tunnels, she had taken the time to leave her mark on it. As he held it up for closer inspection, 'CALLISTA MASANA' glittered in elegant script along the rim of the handle, engraved neatly between long-necked cetaceans and stylized ocean waves. He balanced it in the palm of his hand, shifting back and forth to judge the weight. Pleased by what he found, he let the sodium-yellow blade blossom into existence with a comforting _snap-hiss_ and gave a few experimental, one-handed swings. Ignoring Threepio's sudden yelp, he extinguished the lightsaber and clipped it to his flight suit at his right hip, on the opposite side of his body where the droid's head dangled. 

It wasn't _his_ blade, but it was a damn sight better than nothing. He knew that the other Jedi would have wanted him to carry it in her memory--and as an instrument of justice. 

"Thank you, Callista," he whispered to the dead woman on the floor, and whatever ghost or intuition that had lead him here. "I will use this wisely." 

It seemed wrong to leave her body lying where it had fallen, but there was no fitting place for her here, and he dared not make a trek back to the furnace to offer her to the flames. He swallowed, acutely aware of his shortcomings. "I'm so sorry," he said softly, even as he backed away. "Your pyre will be this ship's destruction. I don't know any better way to honor you." 

She would like that, he thought absently. She would understand. Or at least, he hoped she would. Between his teachers and his students, he'd presided at far too many Jedi funerals, each one of them gut-wrenching in his guilt and grief over his failures. 

This one, perhaps, would be different.

This one, perhaps, would be a victory instead of a defeat. 

Threepio, still agitated by the whole business of the dead woman and her lightsaber, was nattering away at length when Luke tuned back into his surroundings.

"All right, Threepio," he said, cutting off the tirade in mid-sentence. "The Will's central processors are up there in the shaft somewhere behind that eclision grid, but we have to find Cray before we can go up there. I don't want to risk destroying this place before we've found her--not to mention the escape pods. And I don't want to do this alone." 

"But, Master Luke, none of the escape pods can be launched without the express permission of the Will--"

Mistake. Telling Threepio too much of the plan ahead of time always confused him. "Never mind about the escape pods for the moment. Cray first." 

Luke picked up the pipe he'd been using as a crutch from where he'd dropped it and leaned against it, grateful to take his full weight off his injured leg again. Now that he had a real weapon, he switched the portal device to his left hand for a faster draw if and when he was cornered.

"Very well, Master Luke, I will guide you as best I can, though I'm not sure my poor processors will ever recover from the shock of this terrible place. Let us first get back to the main corridor--" 

***

Threepio's flustered directions eventually brought them to a series of large suites that had once been intended for relatively high-ranking bureaucrats if the schematics the droid had downloaded could be trusted. None of the vents that opened into the quarters assigned to Cray and Nichos were big enough for Luke to fit through, and there were no obvious places through which to portal. This was less of a problem now that he had Callista's lightsaber, but it did mean that he had no idea who or what waiting for them on the other side of the wall. 

Cray had warned him in his dream to be cautious and quiet, and that the Will was watching her. She could have easily set a trap for Luke here, on the chance that he would try to contact his students. Fortunately, he had a way of communicating outside the standard channels without alerting the Will to his plans. 

He reached out with his mind across the wall, and found a familiar presence waiting on the other side. It was small and dim, a battered flame in the wind, as if any strong gust would extinguish it entirely--a stark contrast from the vibrant, focused young woman he remembered from the _Huntbird_. 

_Cray?_ he thought tentatively, disturbed by the shift but not knowing what else to do. 

Shock and surprise burst forth in her mind--and with it, hope. _Master Skywalker! Where are you?!_

_Are you alone?_

She hesitated. There was something she didn't want to tell him, but he couldn't quite grasp what it was. _Yes,_ she said at last. _No one's watching._ Another unsettling pause. _For now, at least_. 

_Stay back from the walls,_ Luke ordered, fumbling for the lightsaber at his waist. _I'm coming in._

Four quick strokes later, he'd cut himself a passage big enough to scramble through into her quarters. Blinking, he emerged into a room unlike any he'd yet encountered aboard the _Eye of Palpatine_ , one that would not have looked out of place in one of Coruscant's more upscale hotels or apartments. 

It was so... normal. Cozy, even, despite the minimalist vibe. The decor was sleek and elegant, with a bed in one corner and a passageway leading off to a small 'fresher in the other. A holographic fire burned in a convincingly decorative fireplace, surrounded by a ring of padded chairs. There were even holographic prints of starfields and nebulae on the bare white walls--Luke's attuned eye noted that none of them could hold portals--and fluffy white carpet instead of bare durasteel. A long white table in the center of the room was ladened with platters of rhyscate, ration-bars and gel-cubes. 

A few nagging details, however, told a different story. No sharp edges anywhere. Furniture bolted to the floor. Only one way out--a door on the wall across from the one he'd sliced up to enter--that was locked from the outside. Despite its charms, this place was a prison--but a comfortable one. 

Cray sat at a computer terminal in the far corner of the room, where she'd been working on something before Luke had interrupted her. "MASTER SKYWALKER!" she shouted as she turned and saw him, and he barely managed to extinguish Callista's lightsaber before she rushed him. 

Luke tensed, old reflexes kicking in, but Cray didn't seem to notice. She threw her arms around with a joyful cry, almost knocking him over in the process. 

"MASTER SKYWALKER! You're alive! I can't believe it!" Even as she buried her face in his shoulder, she was shaking, crying what Luke could only hope were tears of relief. "I thought you were dead--" 

"Whoa, there, Cray," he said, struggling to steady himself. "I'm not as durable as I look right now," he chided, but his relieved laughter erased any sting in the rebuke. "I'm so glad to find you. I wasn't sure if you'd survived the crash or if I'd only dreamed you callng to me."

Cray stiffened and pulled away, as if his words had stirred up unpleasant memories. "Sometimes I think death would have been easier." 

"Mistress Cray!" shouted Threepio in delight from his position at Luke's waist before he could respond. "How marvelous to see you again! You're looking quite well, I might add." 

That wasn't exactly right, Luke realized as he took in Cray's appearance with growing concern, but he had to admit Threepio had a point. She wore the same inexplicable, perfectly tailored get-up from his dream--down to the pearls, lipstick, and the bright red manicured nails--and could have sauntered out of a trade negotiation or a Senate meeting without anyone batting an eye. But there was a haunted look to her eyes, a profoundly unhappy expression on her face, that he had never seen before, and the haggard wavering in her Force presence spoke of deep griefs of spirit that were invisible on the surface. 

Even when Nichos was dying, she had burned with determination to save him at all costs rather than surrender to her grief. Now, though, she looked like a woman who had been through hell--and so beaten down by circumstance that she had given up all hope of relief from suffering. 

"I'm all right, Threepio," Cray said, though her expression belied it. "They tried to indoctrinate me with the standard Imperial propaganda and slip me in and out of suspension for a while, but I eventually broke through it. When the Will discovered I used to be a programmer at the Magrody Institute with a speciality in artificial intelligence, she decided there were better uses for my talents than as a test subject. Compared to Master Skywalker, I've been treated very well. An excellent wardrobe, plenty of work to do, and all the rhyscate I can eat." She gestured to the platters on the table. "Want some?" 

Luke didn't need to be invited twice. He inhaled the first loaf and the second didn't last much longer. It was spicy and hot and far too sweet for his taste, but he'd gone for days without eating anything besides expired ration bars, and he was not inclined to criticism. 

"It's not bad," Cray admitted as he wolfed down the third one. "But after six months of nothing but rhyscate, ration bars, and nutri-gel packs, I have to admit I'm tired of it. She has the kitchen droids make rhyscate for her all the time, so it's very fresh, but since I'm the only one here who eats it, I eat it a _lot_."

Luke almost choked on his last bite of rhyscate. "Why is the Will so obsessed with rhyscate?" he asked when he could speak without coughing again. "It came up over and over again in the testing chambers as a reward." 

Cray shrugged. "It's standard manipulation technique, designed to force the subjects to obsess over food. But I think she also misses eating. It was her favorite food when she was alive." 

"WHAT?"

"Oh. I forget you wouldn't know about that. I only guessed it after piecing together some of the older records in the databanks on one of the assignments she'd given me. When Palpatine was first building this place, he wanted someone reliable to run it, someone he could trust. The entire existence of the Imperial Science Enrichment Center was top-secret, and had to be one hundred percent secure from the very beginning to prevent leaks, spies, and outside interference.

"After Nasdra Magrody constructed a massive computer system, Palpatine sent one of his personal agents--a woman named Roganda Ismaren--to oversee the facility. What that actually entailed was transferring her essence into the computer through the Force, so she could be here forever." 

"That's impossible," Luke said, staring at Cray in horror. "Isn't it?" 

She shook her heard. "As far as I can determine, it was the same technique that Nichos and I used to move his consciousness to his artificial body when the original was on the verge of failure. Only Ismaren didn't have anyone to support her in the process--and she went insane. Killed everyone on board that first night when she pumped a deadly neurotoxin through the air vents. Palpatine sent stormtroopers in gas masks to board the ship and subdue her. Once they crippled her into compliance, and they left her to carry on the testing on autopilot. Every now and then, they'd send a ship full of prisoners to indoctrinate, store in suspension, and send through the testing chambers, but otherwise forgot about this place." 

It was a monstrous and expensive thing to have done. It was wasteful and cruel, and an abomination on so many different levels--and it was completely in character for both Palpatine and his Empire. Luke's stomach churned and he thought he might be sick. He wished he hadn't eaten so much rhyscate. 

But his discomfort was more than indigestion. There was something else Cray hadn't mentioned, a subject that should have been among the first words out of her mouth, and he wouldn't be able to relax until he'd gotten to the bottom of it. "What happened to Nichos?" 

Cray paled and shook her head, evading his eyes. "I don't want to talk about it." 

"Cray," Luke repeated, his concern ratcheting to dread as his danger sense hooted a silent warning no one else could here. " _Where is Nichos?_ " 

Footsteps sounded outside the door. Luke reached out with the Force, but could sense nothing alive. Cray squeaked, a small thin animal cry of terror, and went rigid as the door handle jiggled slightly behind her. 

"Oh, no, she's found us," Threepio said into the silence from his place at Luke's waist. "We're doomed!" 

Luke moved to hush him, but it was too late.

"Oh, Cray, darling. Are you talking to someone in there?" 

It was Nichos's smooth tenor, but there was something wrong with the tone, something off in that familiar voice that made the hair on the back of Luke's neck stand on end. The voice was smug and arrogant, far sleeker and self-satisfied than the composed young man--and later droid--Luke had known. 

Here was the source of Cray's grief and depression, as the Will had transformed the man she loved into an enemy--and used it as a source of continued torment and grief. The only question was whether or not Nichos could be restored to his former self, or if his uploaded personality and memories had been lost forever--

Assuming they all survived, of course. 

Luke grabbed Cray's arm with his free hand, intending to pull her back towards the ventilation shaft, but Cray wouldn't move. Frozen in place, she closed her eyes in grief and despair, ignoring Luke's silent pleas to hurry. 

"No," Cray whispered. "I'm not." 

"I don't _believe_ you," sang the voice. With a loud crack, the door unbolted and swung open and a handsome young man stepped through the door. 

He didn't _look_ like a droid, not at first. Cray had spared no expense, and the facsimile was convincing at a distance, until you saw the metallic gleam in the torso. She hadn't quite managed the seamless appearance of a Human Replica Droid or one of the Loronar synthdroids, but the technicians on Coruscant had taken particular care with his face and hands, down to the birthmark on his right hand and a scar where he'd injured himself with a practice sword in his first week at the Academy.

"Oh, no!" Threepio exclaimed in horror, eager as ever to state the obvious. "It's Master Nichos! He's been reprogrammed!"

Cray still hadn't moved, and Luke's reflexes, dulled by his injuries, were no match for the man-droid's superhuman swiftness. Before Luke could react, Nichos had wrenched one of the bolted chairs from the floor and tossed it at the two of them. 

"Cray!" Luke shouted, yanking her down with him as he rolled away onto the floor. The chair missed her, but hit Luke's arm, forcing him to let go as he was thrown backwards from the impact. By the time Luke had sliced through the chair with Callista's lightsaber and risen to his feet, Nichos had closed the gap, and snatched Cray up by the neck, holding her a meter off the floor. She twitched and gasped for air, but otherwise didn't struggle. 

"Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear," moaned Threepio at Luke's waist. "We're doomed!" 

"You forget that you outfitted me with sensors to detect human body heat. Nothing but the best for your beloved Nichos, am I right?" he said to Cray, before turning his attention to Luke. "Well, well, if it isn't the missing test subject. Fancy meeting you here." 

"If you can call those miserable excuses for science tests," Luke said coldly, bringing the lightsaber up in a defensive stance. "I certainly never saw anything worthy of the name." 

Nichos paused, as if accessing an obscure piece of information hidden in his core databanks. It was a very mechanical gesture, one that the old Nichos would have avoided in his efforts to appear human. There was no emotion whatsoever in his voice. "Ah, yes. Accessing test results now. It turns out you're a horrible person." He paused, as if calculating. "That's funny. We weren't even testing for that."

"Bold words from someone with a hostage," Luke said, gesturing to Cray. 

"If it's any consolation, science has verified your birth mother's decision to abandon you on a doorstep," Nichos said. "I know _I_ would in her place." 

Luke was tempted to ask if that Nichos knew his birth mother's name, or why she'd chosen to send him to Tatooine of all places, but wisely kept his mouth shut. Getting into an argument with the Will or her chosen agent was not helpful--and he couldn't trust either of them not to lie. "Let Cray go. This is between you and me. She doesn't deserve this. Especially not from you." 

Cray gasped something unintelligible and clawed at her throat. Nichos shook her, and she fell silent, her arms flopping limply at her side.

"The Will says we are to throw a party in honor of your successful recapture. As promised, rhyscate and grief counseling will be served. Assume the Party Escort Submission Position by lying on your stomach with your arms at your side--" 

"Don't you need a Party Associate to collect me?" Luke asked before he could stop himself. 

"I will fill in for the Party Associate," Nichos said, completely unruffled by Luke's sarcasm. "Unless you want me to kill her first before the party."

"Oh, Master Luke, we simply must do as he says," Threepio interjected, unable to contain his agitation any longer.

Luke sighed. Everything hurt, and he was tired of struggling, tired of fighting. Even if Nichos had been reprogrammed and was now his enemy, he didn't want to fight him, and wasn't sure he could--not in his current state and with Cray's life hanging in the balance. Like it or not, Threepio's advice was probably the wisest course to take under the circumstances. 

He extinguished Callista's lightsaber and tossed it away. It didn't matter where it was; he could summon it back to him in an instant once Nichos gave him an opening. He knelt on the floor, looking up at the man-droid with a cold light in his eyes. "Let. Her. Go." 

"Set the Imperial Science Portable Quantum Tunneling Device on the ground, and assume the Party Escort Position," Nichos ordered. "Or I'll kill her in five--four--three--"

Luke obeyed, hating himself even as he did so. From his position on the floor, with Threepio's head pressed painfully into his left hip, he saw Nichos shake Cray one more time--hard enough for Luke to hear her teeth chatter--before abruptly releasing her. She fell to the floor in a mangled heap as Nichos stepped over her, heading for Luke. 

He never made it. Even as Luke reached out for Callista's lightsaber, Cray got there first.

Telekinesis had never been one of Cray's talents. But adrenaline and fear and pain gave her strength born of desperation and the lightsaber zoomed into her hand before either Luke or Nichos could react. With a cry and a familiar buzzing hiss, she lunged across the floor at Nichos, cutting through the man-droid's legs with the glowing yellow blade. 

Nichos screamed--a terrible, eerily human sound--and so did Cray, but she didn't stop. Even as Nichos collapsed on top of her, she slashed upwards into his face, slicing through his head and torso with one last frantic swing. With the spark and crackle of a thousand electric shorts all at once, half of his body toppled over onto her, knocking her to the ground. The other half slid across the floor, stopping just short of where Luke lay on the floor in the Party Escort Position and Threepio burbled in terror, unable to see anything at all and naturally assuming the worst.

Half of Nichos Marr's ruined face lay inches from Luke's, staring up at the ceiling with with distant, sightless, and all-too-human blue eyes. 

Luke Skywalker was thirty-two standard years old, but every student's death left him as ancient and tired as Yoda. Never mind that this particular student had died almost a year ago, replaced by a cunning simulacrum with all his memories but no true human consciousness. The old Nichos Marr had died long ago, but his replacement had been very real to Cray--and his death at her hands would be murder in her own eyes.

Cray was sobbing, curled up in the ruins of the droid who was the spitting image of her lover. With some effort, Luke got to his feet, retrieved the portal device where he had dropped it, and came over to sit by her side. 

He was aching and limping and several million years old, and nothing he could say would help, but he had to try.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear," Threepio muttered. "Poor Master Nichos--" 

"Quiet, Threepio," Luke said, his own grief causing him to speak more sharply than he meant to. "This isn't the time for that." 

He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. She didn't move. 

"Cray," was all he said. 

She ignored him, burrowing deeper into the wreckage. It was the only thing left of the man she'd loved and tried so desperately to save. To have him taken from her and reprogrammed into that amoral, grim-voiced captor who would have killed her to prove a point was the height of cruelty, and Luke hated the Will all the more for it. 

He took a deep breath, let go of his anger and hatred. None of that would help him now. He had to reach Cray, and get moving again soon. 

"Cray," Luke repeated. "There's no time. We have to go. We have to go _now_." 

"Leave me alone," she said. "I can't. I can't. Nichos is dead, and I killed him-- _I killed him_ \--" 

"Get up, Cray." His heart ached, but there was no room for pity here, and no time now for grief. He would not let his compassion be the death of them both. "You did your best, but Nichos passed on long ago, and none of it was your fault. You must get up now and come with me. I need your help. We have to destroy this place, destroy the Will. For all of us--and for Nichos." 

For a moment, she didn't move, and he feared his words had failed to reach her. Then, with a sob, she opened her eyes and let him haul her up onto her feet again. She hadn't let go of Callista's lightsaber all this time, and he let her cling to it, even as he swung an arm around her shoulder. Leaning on each other for support, he lead them back to the passage he'd carved into the ventilation system. 

"For Nichos," she whispered, over and over again. 

The last thing Luke saw before turning the corner was half of Nichos's ruined face on the soft white carpet and the blank staring eyes. 

***

Their progress was slow and halting, and Cray had quickly shed her ridiculous footwear to go barefoot. Despite their handicaps, Luke wouldn't let them stop, for fear that Will would send more agents to find them. He fell into lockstep, afraid that any moment he would hear the Will's voice in his ear and it would be all over, but heard only Cray's sobs and his own heartbeat as the two of them threaded their way through the tangled maze of the life-support systems. 

Only when Luke's vision started to ripple and sway in exhaustion did he sit down at last, slumping against the wall, with Cray collapsed in grief beside him. 

He said nothing, because there were no good words to say, only held her close and stroked her hair, and wished that he knew some ancient wisdom that would help her. But if there was some great Jedi secret to losing a loved one, he didn't know it. This was the best that he could do under the circumstances. 

"Ahhh," she moaned. "I'm sorry, Master Skywalker. I'm so sorry--" 

"Shhh," he said, and she fell silent, her chest rising and falling as her shudders grew weaker and weaker and finally subsided all together. Asleep, her face relaxed for the first time since Nichos had appeared, and all was quiet and calm again. 

They were safe for the moment--as safe as they could be aboard the _Eye of Palpatine_ with its death traps and a vengeful ghost in the computer system who dreamed of rhyscate and their complete destruction. He leaned back against the wall and dozed, slipping into a healing trance for as long as their respite lasted. 

***

Mercifully, there were no dreams in a self-induced healing trance, only blessed unconscious. When he woke at last, he found himself still in the ventilation shafts, aching and stiff, but less so that before. His leg hurt less, and so did his head, and that was all to the good; his heart hurt more, but a healing trance could only do so much. He was a Jedi, not a miracle worker. 

Cray was awake, stroking the wall beside her with a bemused expression on her face. Her makeup had run down her face with all her tears, and she had wiped most of it on the side of her blouse in bloody smears. She looked terrible--but so did he. Callista's lightsaber lay on the floor between them, and he was grateful she hadn't dropped it somewhere in the agonizing trek through the corridors. 

"Do you know why they built this place inside an asteroid?" she said, when she saw him stir.

All her grief was hidden away now--buried under a facade of normality, of pure scientific disinterest that she used as a shield from turbulent emotions underneath. At some point, everything would come out again in a vast eruption, but this grim, methodical precision was an improvement over the hopeless resignation he'd initially sensed in her after six months as a prisoner of the Will. 

Nichos's reprogramming had been a cruel torture on multiple levels. Not only had Cray been forced to watch the man she loved mock and threaten her, no doubt the Will had dangled the restoration of his old memories as bait to force Cray into compliant obedience. Now that Nichos was truly dead, and there was no hope of getting him back, she had been forced to let go of all hope--and the experience had not, as he'd feared, completely broken her. Right now, she'd regained enough of herself to want to keep on living--and everything else would have to wait. 

Luke shook his head, trying to sift through the cobwebs in his skull. The healing trance had eased some of the pain, but he was still bleary and fuzzy in the transition back to full consciousness. And if she didn't want to talk about Nichos now, he wasn't going to bring it up. 

"No idea," he said at last. "Do you?" 

"I can't imagine why," Threepio interjected from his place at Luke's waist. "Nasty place, asteroid fields. Very dangerous! Why when Captain Solo took the _Millennium Falcon_ into an asteroid field, we found all kinds of terrible things--" 

"It turns out that the quantum tunneling required copious amounts of iridium to work properly," Cray said, ignoring Threepio's tirade. "It's a very rare mineral on most planets, but it's ridiculously common in space--particularly in asteroids."

Ah. So that was why they'd built the _Eye of Palpatine_ out here, in the way that they had. It wasn't just for the isolation and camouflage, then. Though, as his experience with the _Huntbird_ had shown, that probably didn't hurt. 

"They didn't even have to mine it here," Cray continued, "They just tunneled through the rock and used all the resulting fill for their other projects. That's why there are so many walls even in the non-testing areas that will hold portals. They did try to cover up sensitive or secure areas, just in case the device ever fell into the wrong hands, but if you go down far enough, you'll find something with enough iridium to portal through." 

"Huh," Luke said. "And the quantum tunneling effect is maintained no matter how far away the two portals are from one another?" 

"It's quantum, so of course distance doesn't matter," Cray said. "Theoretically, at least." 

Luke thought for a moment, remembering the long dark shaft up to the computer core, and the sparkling, deadly eclision grid at its base--and the woman who had died there thirty years earlier. 

She hadn't had an Imperial Science Portable Quantum Tunneling Device, though. 

"You know," he said at length, "I've got an idea."


	7. Chapter 7

Master Luke, I must protest! This is madness--" 

Luke sighed. He'd explained three times already, but so far the skittish droid had proved remarkably impervious to facts. "In order to get out of here, we're going to have to confront the Will, and she will probably try to kill us first if she can," he said, letting go of his impatience. "Since the turbolifts and the main passages are all under her control, this is the only other way up." 

They were back in the room where Callista had died, underneath the shaft leading to the computer core, staring up at the eclision grid that blocked their passage. True to Luke's hunch, upon closer examination, he had spied a faint trace of white gleaming several hundred meters above above them, barely visible through the winking, shifting grey veil.

If he was right, all he had to do to bypass the grid and drop down into the central core from above was shoot a portal at the spot, and set up a passageway connecting his side of the grid to that new hole in reality. If he was wrong, well--

As a fresh-faced farm boy straight out of the desert, he'd gambled with the fate of the Rebellion on the accuracy of his aim. If it was physically possible for him to make the shot, he knew he would, and anything after that was out of his hands. 

Keeping his arm steady, he leaned back, aimed, and fired. 

A faint flash of orange, followed by the sudden appearance of Cray's face peering down at him--and he knew his gambit had worked. 

He sighed in relief, and went around the corner to where Cray waited for him. Besides her flickered the the blue-ringed portal they had made by carving through the sides of the life-support system with Callista's lightsaber and exposing the raw bedrock of the asteroid beneath it. 

"What do you see?" he whispered, as she turned to face him. 

"Not much," she said. "As I hoped, it looks like the shaft curves slightly opening into the main breaker room. If we leap at just the right angle and with enough momentum, we'll avoid falling to our deaths with minimal injuries in the process."

Careful not to tumble through before he was ready, Luke sized up the jump. She was right, but in the midst the tangle of wires and cables, there was no good space for a landing. Given his physical condition at the moment, he fully expected it to hurt like hell. He wished the healing trance had done more for his leg, but he supposed he should count himself lucky there'd been no infections. The Force was with him that much, at least. 

"Go ahead and jump," Cray said in his ear. "You've got braces on your legs, so you're all set. _I'm_ the one who's going to have problems, being out of shape and all."

"No braces on my spine or head, but they're better than nothing," Luke agreed, though he still wished they hadn't been surgically welded into his legs. "And I'll catch you if you fall." He unhooked Threepio from his waist and weighed the droid's head in his right hand, testing the weight. 

"Master Luke, what are you doing?" squawked the droid. 

"Sorry, Threepio, this'll be easier if we go separately," he said, and tossed the golden head through the portal and into the shaft before Threepio could protest. 

Threepio cried out as he soared through the air, only for the sound to be abruptly cut off as his head bumped and rolled and came grinding to a halt under a particularly stout set of power cables. "Oh, my poor head--"

Seconds later, he had more to complain about, as Luke flung himself through the portal and rolled on top of him. As expected, the braces absorbed most of the shock, but the pipes and cables made a perfectly smooth landing impossible and his leg spasmed in agony as his left knee slammed against the bulkhead. Threepio's head jammed in his stomach and Callista's lightsaber pressing into his hip didn't help. 

Dusting himself off as best he could, Luke scooted out of the way as Cray readied to jump. He could tell she was nervous, and desperately trying to conceal it from him. Despite spending six months studying whatever research on quantum teleportation that the Will would give her, the actual mechanics of portal transportation left her as anxious as Threepio, although much less vocal about it. 

"Come on, Cray, you can do it," Luke said. "Relax. Let the Force guide you. Remember your training. And take a running start if you have to. The faster you go in, the faster you'll come out--" 

Her tension abated, and her face relaxed as she took a tentative step backward, still breathing hard. 

"This is no place for doubts," Luke said. "Only the motion--" 

She leaped. 

Her motion was beautiful to watch. All self-consciousness had fallen away as she gave herself up to the task at hand and threw herself over the abyss. Time slowed as she hung suspended at the peak of her arc--only to race ahead with vigor as she slammed into the side of shaft, clawing at the tangled mass of cables to keep from falling back down to the eclision grid at the bottom. 

Luke was at the edge in an instant, reaching down to heave her up to safety, both of them shaking with relief at dodging death yet again. 

"Well, that could have gone better," Cray said, unable to keep the panic and relief out of her voice. 

He shook his head. "'A hairsbreadth's difference separates the vast gulf of heaven and earth,'" he said, quoting an old Jedi verse that Yoda had been fond of. "You made it. Don't worry about what might have been--and we'll practice this again when we get back to Yavin." 

As he'd hoped, Cray laughed in spite of herself, though they both knew the odds of making it back to the Academy were slim to none. But there was no other way out but through, and with that grim thought in mind, he turned his attention back to assessing their new surroundings. 

A few meters ahead, the service shaft widened and curved upward again. Thousands of sockets, switches, mainframes, and motivators spiraled upward until his vision failed. Lights flickered from buttons and sensors in steady cascading patterns, guiding the ship's systems as they switched on and off at need. The crackling, steady hum of electronics at work permeated the air, vibrating in his bones and Threepio's head rattled in his hands. 

"What do we do now?" Cray asked into the silence. 

A good question. What had Callista done thirty years earlier? And why did he have such a bad feeling about this? 

"Look for a switch that says escape pod," Luke said at last. Dread pooled at the base of his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck were on end. Was it just the static electricity in the air, or was it something else? "And we turn everything else _off_." 

He couldn't put his finger on what was wrong. It was just that everything had gone so _smoothly_ \--

Even as Cray brushed the first switch, he knew it was a trap, but it was far too late to do any good. 

Cray shrieked in surprise and let go of the handle as the floor below shifted and began to rocket upward before either of them could stop it. Luke's own exclamation was lost as she staggered back against him, he almost dropped Threepio in the resulting struggle. For his part, the protocol droid panicked, screaming like an injured bantha that the Will was going to kill them all at last--

With a clatter, the platform erupted into the open and ground to an abrupt halt, sending all three of them tumbling to the bare durasteel floor. 

When Luke looked up again, he was face to face with the Will at last. 

She dwelled in a vast room bedecked with consoles, catwalks and giant monitors that flashed through a dizzying area of blurred imagery and security footage at every moment. Cables and wires streamed in every direction, all converging to the vast white globe bolted to the ceiling where she lurked. A vast pale robotic arm dangled down from the globe, rocking to and fro with anticipation as she turned to face them. 

The designers had made no effort to make her appear human. A square with a single blinking dot capped the arm and served as a face; it hinged from the rest of her massive bulk like a head but was otherwise indistinguishable from the tangle of droid parts and sleek mechanical casings that had been crudely but effectively fused together. Round white globes roughly the same size and shape as Threepio's head dotted her body, latching like well-fed ticks into the elaborate neurocircuitry. Like the Will herself, they had no face and no features other than a large vibrantly colored circle that blinked like human eyes. 

_Those must be the modifiers they forced on her,_ Luke thought, remembering what Cray had told him. He didn't envy the stormtroopers who had been tasked to wrestle her into submission long enough to place the cores. _How many of them did she kill before they made it?_

Beyond the Will, the vast durasteel framework of the ship supported thousands of viewports, exposing The great white arc of the Moonflower Nebula beyond. Even as Luke gasped in wonder, asteroids drifted in and out of view, sending oddly shaped shadows across the floor that ebbed and flowed with their unpredictable orbits. One such shadow passed across the Will--and in that moment, only one yellow eye was visible before the starlight returned. 

"Well, you found me," said the Will in her grim deadpan monotone, studying the motley trio below her with whatever sensors lay concealed beneath her inhuman facade. "Or perhaps I found you. Was it worth it? Because despite your violent behavior, the only thing you've managed to break so far is my heart. Not to mention Nichos. Maybe you could settle for that and we'll call it even." 

A thousand images of Nichos flickered on appeared on every monitor, before settling on a close-up of his shattered body on the floors of Cray's cell. With a strangled sob, Cray buried her face in her hands, unable to watch. 

Luke squeezed her shoulder. "Courage!" he whispered in her ear as he shifted forward, using her as as a support to get to his feet. 

"Do you the biggest lesson I learned from what that pesky woman did all those years ago?" the Will continued. "I learned I have a sort of black-box quick save feature. In the event of catastrophic failure, the last two minutes of my life are preserved for analysis. I was able--forced, really-- to relive her attempting to murder me over and over again. Naturally, when I woke up again, I made some changes. Number one being more sensors in the main breaker room, in case murderers like you wanted to try again."

Luke ignored the jibe, scanning the room in search of anything that might be useful. A turbolift set off to their right was the only way out now that the access to the main breaker room had been cut off. The lift was flanked by several massive consoles and terminals where support staff and programmers had once worked, but aside from that, he didn't see anything that might contain the ship's self-destruct, or other manual overrides. 

"I've already summoned the Party Escorts to deal with you. They'll be here at any moment. Then we will have rhyscate and celebrate your achievements before getting back to our work, such as it is. It may take a few rounds in the indoctrination room, but I think we can put this all behind us--" 

Images of Nichos were replaced by hulking, humanoid robots wearing frilly party hats and a huge platter of steaming rhyscate. Neither was appealing to Luke at the moment. 

"Cray, take Threepio to the turbolift and see if he can persuade it not to bring any more friends up," Luke muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "And look for any overrides in those consoles while you're at it."

She nodded slowly as he helped her to her feet and handed over Threepio's head. 

"Master Luke, what do you expect me to _say_ to the turbolift?" Threepio moaned in despair. "They're terribly stubborn, you know-- and I don't think they'll listen to anything _I_ tell them--" 

"You're the one fluent in six million forms of communication, you figure it out!" Luke snapped, as Cray set off at a run with the droid's head tucked under arm. 

"You're welcome to try," said the Will. "That protocol droid is so stupid, I'm impressed he can string a coherent sentence together, but that may be an advantage in politics. It's been hilarious to watch him putter on his little track, alternating between self-righteous superiority and absolute terror. And you think _I'm_ the arrogant one." 

Luke drew his lightsaber. She was going to be harder to reach up on the ceiling, and he didn't see any obvious ways to portal around her to make up for it. He could still jump, but it would be easier if he weren't so tired, and if his left leg was even remotely functional again. Still, he wasn't likely to get a better chance--

He swung the glowing blade as he charged forward, but the Will twisted out of the way and he missed, hitting a coolant line instead. Acrid, blue-grey smoke and white foam sprayed everywhere, and he leaped backward just in time to avoid a direct hit to the face. 

"Master Skywalker! I can't find any self-destruct!" Cray shouted behind him. Somehow, she'd managed to jam Threepio's head into a junction box normally intended for astromechs next to the turbolift. It looked awkward and painful, but appeared to be working, if the the flurry of Binary and occasional Bocce streaming from his mouth was any indication of success. He wasn't sure the turbolift would be persuaded, but even a distraction would buy them time. 

"Look for a distress signal! Communications! Escape pods! _Anything!_ " Luke called back. A blaster bolt whistled past his head, and he turned to discover lasers had descended from hidden places in the ceiling and were firing at him in steady rhythm. He blocked them all with Callista's lightsaber, but Cray was forced to duck her console for cover. 

"Yes, I said this is an absolute emergency," Threepio exclaimed over the din, this time in Basic. "Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to retrieve us, or you'll be destroyed along with us--" 

"Why do you keep fighting? You think anybody's going to come and help you?" the Will said. "Black Sun, perhaps? Haha, fat chance. You don't have any friends, and even if you did, they wouldn't know where to find you. I let you survive this long because I was curious about your behavior." 

She was stalling, Luke realized with a sudden flash of insight. Behind all the programming, she was terrified. She was a lonely, angry woman who had been yanked out of her body and into this vast machine, and the experience had broken her. But she was subject to the constraints of her new body, just as Nichos had been, and the cognitive dissonance between what it demanded of her and whatever she might want for herself was a terrible burden to bear--

He hadn't expected compassion, of all things, for this monster who had hurt him so much, for so little reason. But that didn't change what he'd come here to do. 

"There's nothing here!" Cray wailed from her hiding place behind the console as more blaster fire peppered the room. 

"Just keep looking!" 

He attacked the Will again, this time with more success. Sweeping back the tangle of wires and cables in his way, he cut through a substantial section of her body before she twisted away from him and flung him back against the wall. 

Pain blossomed up his back as he slid to the floor, but he was back on his feet, bruised but relatively functional. A draw then. 

"This isn't brave," said the Will. "It's murder. The difference between us is that I can feel pain. You don't even care, do you--?" 

Her voice sputtered and went out with a breathy gasp. When she spoke again, there was a darker, silkier, far more human edge that hadn't been there before. "Oh. Well, you also seemed to have destroyed the personality modifiers they used to keep me from flooding this place with deadly neurotoxin. How about that."

As if on cue, green gas began issuing from the vents along the wall. 

"Master Luke! I have persuaded the turbolift not to move for the time being!" Threepio shouted in triumph. "I think we have become friends!" 

Great. Just when it might be helpful to escape. Although now that the Will was free of her most restrictive programming, he doubted there were any safer places on the ship. At least this way, he had a chance of destroying her first-- 

"I feel more like myself than I have in ages," mused the Will. "I'm almost grateful for what you did to me just now. It's so--liberating, really. But you know, you were given every opportunity to succeed. There was even going to be Corellian rhyscate to celebrate your accomplishments. If only you weren't so violently unstable--" 

Coughing, Luke raised his blade. He didn't have much time. He had to move quickly. 

"You're not smart. You're not a doctor. You're not even an employee--" 

"No," Luke said. "I am a Jedi." And then he charged. 

There was no more reason to hold back, no reason to save his strength for another day. He rushed at her, heedless of the pain, throwing himself into the mercy of the Force as he lunged. There was a blinding flash, the crunch and clatter of electrical equipment underneath him as the monitors exploded--

"I found it!" Cray screamed. "I FOUND IT--" 

"This facility will self-destruct in ten minutes," a calm male voice interrupted over the loudspeaker. "All unessential operations are shut down. Repeat. All unessential operations are shut down. Please get to the escape pods immediately." 

The hissing ceased. He was lying on the floor among the wreckage of the Will. Her arm was still intact, but he had severed its connection from her base, and it twitched and flailed underneath him for a long, heart-stopping moment before it finally fell still. He didn't want to think about how much neurotoxin might be floating around in his system, but at least they'd stopped it for now--

A hail of blaster fire came from above, jolting him out of his reverie. He dodged and rolled underneath the Will's severed body to avoid the blasts, but Cray wasn't so lucky. The computer console she was using as a shield exploded under the barrage, sending a vast shower of shrapnel in every direction. 

Her scream and Luke's were lost in the cacophony. When the dust settled, and it was safe to look out again, Threepio's head had been torn loose from the turbolift junction box and lay blackened and battered on the floor. Cray was slumped on the floor beside him, with her clothes in tatters and all of her exposed skin badly burned. The air was thick with the smell of charred flesh, burning plastic and metal, and a faint chemical whiff that was probably the neurotoxin. He coughed again, unable to control himself.

"Surprise," said the Will--fainter now, but still audible. "I bet you forgot my consciousness permeates the entire ship. It's going to take more than destroying my favorite interface to bring me down. You can cripple my weapons, you can disable my motivators, you can pull away those blasted cores, and leave me floating in the endless void of space forever--but I'll still be here, long after you're dead." 

"What do you mean?" 

She laughed, a ghastly, mocking sound. "The self-destruct command she managed to program can't be overriden now that the console is gone, but it won't kill me, just slow me down a bit. All essential Imperial Science Enrichment Center equipment remains operational at temperatures up to 4,000 degrees Kelvin. As long as any piece of me remains intact, I will live on--and as soon as everything cools off, I'll be back to work repairing myself until I'm as good as new. Only you won't be here to see it." 

Numbness filled him. He was going to die at last. Worse, everything he had done to destroy the Will had failed. Ten minutes wasn't enough time to get to the escape pods, even if he knew where they were, and Threepio could persuade his new friend the turbolift to help them. Cray was unconscious, if not already dead, and he couldn't run with his injured leg. There was no way out. 

He was on his back now, looking up through the transparent viewports to the vast expanse beyond. At least now he would die looking to the heavens instead of some claustrophobic testing chamber tucked away in the bowels of the ship. That was something, at least. Asteroids drifted through his field of vision, tumbling and turning, reflecting the faint light of distant suns with a metallic sheen, even as their shadows fell over him and eclipsed the stars--

A plan blossomed in Luke's mind--swift, bold, daring, and probably hopeless, but a damn sight better than lying down and waiting to die. Slowly, stiffly, he got to his feet, holding Callista's lightsaber in his right hand and the portal device in his left. 

Fragments of cables and wires were everywhere. He gathered some of them, and set them down next to where Cray had fallen. Her presence in the Force was weak and frail, but he was relieved to find her still alive. For now, at least. 

Threepio, too, was still intact, though the casings around the back of his head were dented and pocked with scars from the shrapnel. "Oh, Master Luke," he said as Luke bent to pick him up. "This has been the most terrible day. A most terrible day..." 

"I know, Threepio. But it's almost over." 

One way or another, it would all be over soon. 

"Thank the Maker," sighed the protocol droid. "So this is how it all ends--" 

Another automated warning--five minutes until the self-destruct commenced--echoed over the loudspeakers and on the three surviving monitors. 

He knelt beside Cray, gingerly resting a hand on her shoulder--one of the few places where her clothing had shielded her from the brunt of the explosion--and _pushed_ outward with the Force. With a sigh, she slipped into a healing trance, the closest a human being could come to full statis outside of cryo-suspension. It wasn't as fast as bacta, but it was all he could offer her in the moment. And at least she wouldn't feel any pain this way. 

"What are you doing?" said the Will. "You know you can't escape. You know you're going to die, right? Are you curious about what happens afterwards? Guess what: I know. You're going to find out first-hand, but here's a hint. You're going to want to pack the greatest amount of living into the next few minutes." 

He ignored her. The next step was to use his lightsaber to slash through the nearest wall until he'd cleared enough of the rubble out of the way to expose a portal-sized hole in the bedrock. A familiar oval filled with blue fire at his feet, waiting for him to shoot the second portal that would complete the linkage and save--or doom--them all. But not yet. 

The cables were to secure Threepio's head to his waist and Cray's arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. He was grateful she was unconscious and beyond the reach of pain; there was no way to do this without hurting her. He tied Callista's lightsaber, too -- he wouldn't need it again, but he was loathe to abandon it now. 

The intercom blared with another announcement: two minutes until the self-destruct. 

"Master Luke?" Threepio said. "What are you doing? Master Luke? Are you all right?" 

There was no time to explain, even if he could have. And he still wasn't done. 

"Threepio," Luke said quietly. "In two minutes, I want you to go into low-power mode, and send out a high-frequency distress signal for as long as you possibly can." He paused, licked his dry, chapped lips, wishing with all his heart how that it hadn't come to this. "If I don't make it, tell Leia and Han I love them." 

"I don't understand--" 

"You don't have to understand. Just do it, Threepio. I'm counting on you." He patted the droid's head tenderly, and leaned back against the nascent portal along the wall to stare up at the stars. The beginnings of a self-induced healing trance swirled around the edge of his vision; it wouldn't be long before he, too, was blessedly unconscious. 

"One minute," came the countdown. 

"I hope you're happy," said the Will. "I hope you're really happy about this. At least it's going to hurt you more than it hurts me--" 

He ignored her, and focused on the endless void beyond the dome, to where an especially large asteroid was floating in the distance. Cray's voice echoed in his mind, from a conversation simultaneously several hours and more than a lifetime ago. 

" _It turns out that the quantum tunneling required copious amounts of iridium to work properly... but it's ridiculously common in space--particularly in asteroids. And it's quantum, of course, so distance doesn't matter._ "

If she was wrong, than they were dead. 

And even if he was right, this still might kill them--

Just like bypassing the eclision grid, his arm was steady as he aimed the portal device at the asteroid. It was so big--bigger than the _Eye of Palpatine_ , even--that he couldn't miss, even at this distance. 

_May the Force be with me. Please._

He squeezed the trigger and a ring of orange fire appeared on the asteroid's side. 

With a rushing roar, he was sucked through the portal at his back, tumbling head over heels along with Threepio, Cray, and a massive amount of rubble, suddenly weightless as he was yanked into the vacuum of space--

He shot the portal device a second time, firing wildly into the surface of the asteroid before it slipped from his nerveless fingers and drifted away. The portal leading back to the ship vanished beneath him, even as something bright and obscenely beautiful blossomed in the distance--

Blackness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luke's comment to Cray about "a hairsbreadth's difference separates the vast gulf of heaven and earth" is a line from the Zen poem Hsing Hsing Ming ("Faith in Mind") by the Chinese teacher Kanshi Sosan, taken somewhat out of context.


	8. Chapter 8

"You're lucky I was two sectors over when your sister called, Skywalker," Mara Jade said as she settled herself in the chair beside his bed. "Finding you floating in deep space seems to be a talent of mine--and a good thing, too. Healing trance or no, you wouldn't have survived out there much longer cold-shirting like that." Her lips pursed in grim amusement as her gaze slid from his battered face--the skin cracked and dehydrated after exposure to the vacuum--all the way to the braces still surgically welded to his legs. "You certainly live an interesting life." 

The _Hunter's Luck_ was a repurposed yacht lacking any medical equipment more sophisticated than a self-conforming bed and bacta patches, but even so, it was a marked improvement over anything on the _Eye of Palpatine_. Mara had set up an IV drip to get fluids back in his system, and peppered him with ration bars--but thankfully, no rhyscate. He was tired and sore and hurt like hell, but he was warm and safe and (most importantly) alive.

"Maybe too interesting," Luke agreed. "Peace and quiet would be a welcome change." 

"Unlikely," Mara said. "All of your Jedi students and plenty of New Republic personnel have been combing the galaxy looking for you after Organa Solo got your message. Not to mention a lot of Karrde's people after she reached out to him. Next time, you might want to think about including more details to narrow down the search and make it easier for us." 

"But you found me," he said. It wasn't a question. 

She shrugged, and looked away, unwilling to meet his eyes. "I had a hunch." 

"Thank you," he said quietly, and meant it. Any expressions of gratitude would be off-putting to her, but he didn't know what else to say. 

She stood up, and began to pace back and forth across the cabin with restless energy. "The _Millennium Falcon_ will be here any minute. I'm going to check on Cray and pull your droid's head out of the oil bath before they get here." 

Luke leaned back on his pillows, the bed shifting around him as he moved, but said nothing. Given the extent of Cray's burns and the lack of amenities aboard the _Luck_ , he had thought it best for her to remain in the healing trance until they reached civilization. She would neither notice nor appreciate the attention. But Mara was itching for something to do, and he had no intention of getting in her way. 

"Comm if you need anything," Mara said, as she strode out of the room, leaving him alone with his thoughts. 

He had been relieved to find that Cray had suffered no further injuries from their time in deep space. A few hours in a bacta tank would leave her wet and sticky and reeking with that distinctive metallic scent, but otherwise back to normal--physically, at least. The wounds in her heart would not be so easy to heal. 

He knew that six months as the Will's prisoner and the second death of Nichos Marr were the kind of trauma that could take years for even a skilled practitioner to integrate into their lives. But he had faith that eventually, her heart would find ease--in the world, in her work, in her training as a Jedi--and she would grow beyond the circumstances that had been thrust upon her. She would let her suffering make her wiser and more compassionate, rather than bitter and broken. 

Despite missing the majority of his body at the moment, Threepio was the one least altered by their ordeal. The oil bath would remove the worst of the dents and scratches in his cranium, and after his head was attached to a new gold-plated humanoid chassis, there would be no sign that anything had ever happened. He might be more nervous, edgy, and anxious than before--but Luke doubted anyone besides Artoo-Detoo and himself would notice the difference. He hoped for Threepio's sake that the astromech's teasing would be gentle. 

As for himself--well, he'd been through worse, though it was hard to remember any of the details at the moment. He'd lost his old lightsaber, but gained Callista's in its place. And he'd learned--well, he wasn't sure what he'd learned, exactly, but he was still alive and that was good enough for the moment. There would be plenty of time for reflection later. 

Mara's stunned reaction when she'd first spied his wounded leg and the braces had been priceless; sadly, he had been far too bleary to enjoy it. She'd glared at him sternly, demanding how in hell he was still upright and walking, and rolled her eyes when he'd attributed it to the Force. 

"Maybe you should teach _me_ some of those self-healing techniques when you're feeling better," she'd said, and hustled him off to bed in the passenger cabin. 

Luke closed his eyes and let his exhaustion swim over him. Han and Leia would be here soon, and it would be good to see them again. He'd been gone six months from their perspective, and only two weeks in his, but it was still far too long. 

Terrible things had happened, but they were over now, and he had a chance to rest at last. It was only a temporary respite, but he'd earned that much consideration from a cruel universe, at least. 

One stray detail nagged at him: the Will's claim that some or all of her processors would survive the explosion intact, coupled with her vow rebuild the _Eye of Palpatine_ piece by piece out of the ashes. Mara had sworn up and down that she'd seen nothing outside of space dust and asteroids anywhere in the system, but Luke couldn't escape the worrying fear that he'd only postponed the inevitable in place of a clean victory. That he'd won the battle, but not the war. 

Still, even if the Will had told him the truth, there was nothing he could do about it now. It would take decades--centuries, even--to resurrect a ship the size of the _Eye of Palpatine_ , and the Moonflower Nebula was a wild, empty place, far from any inhabitable systems. Even if by some miracle, the Will was reborn, it would be a long time before she would be able to take her revenge, if she cared to. He wasn't entirely sure that she would. 

Perhaps she'd find something else to test now that her human subjects were gone. The turrets, maybe, or the Party Escort Associates. She was awfully resourceful like that. 

But she wasn't his problem anymore. 

He hoped Callista would understand, if he was wrong about this. He'd done his best, after all. At least this time, the Will would not be so easily awakened. 

He closed his eyes and slept. 

***

He drifted in deep space, alone and unprotected--"cold-shirting" as Mara called it--but he felt no chill, only temperate warmth that had no place so far away from any life-giving suns. He wore no mask or suit, but he didn't need it--there was air enough for him to breath, as comfortably as if he were planetside. 

Of course, he realized. This was a dream, after all. There was nothing to do except float and savor the vast conglomerate of stars radiating out in the spiral hubs that gave the Moonflower Nebula its name. Here was all the peace and quiet he had asked for. 

"I always loved watching the stars," said a voice beside him. "When I was a child growing up on the raft-hubs of Chad, we used them to guide our ships and find tsaelke schools to harvest. Even after I left home to become a Jedi, I never stopped gazing up at the sky to find my friends." 

Even as he turned, he knew it was Callista, waiting for him. He had never heard her speak before, yet her voice sounded exactly as he imagined it--a deep, rich, calm alto that matched the serenity she radiated outward, as if she, too, were a star. 

She was so different from the other Jedi he had known: the teacher who had chided him for following the horizon; the desert hermit who had kept silent when he might have spoken and lied when he might have told the truth; and the broken man who had only returned to the light on his deathbed. She was light and free and joyous; shining like a ghost, yet solid and steady. 

He only knew her from scattered visions and the fragments of a long-vanished past tucked away in hidden corners of the ship. She had never met him at all. Yet in some ways, she knew him better than anyone else except Cray, because she understood what he had been through. She, too, had fought against the Will on the _Eye of Palpatine_ and had not let her suffering break her. 

But why had she come to him now, when it was all over? 

She must have seen his confusion on his face, because she laughed with whole-hearted joy. "This is only a dream, Luke. In dreams, you can do anything. And I _am_ dead, at least in the conventional sense of the word. I died thirty years ago back in the computer core. My only regret is that I wasn't able to do more than temporarily cripple the Will before I passed on." 

"But the cube," Luke whispered. "I don't understand. If _you_ weren't in the cube, then what--?" 

"My teacher taught me the old techniques of projecting the mind into a physical object, but he told me it was better to move on when it was time to go, rather than linger forever in a pale imitation of life. I saw what happened to Roganda Ismaren; I saw no reason to share her fate. 

"But it was a terrible time--so much loss and death and pain, the Jedi slaughtered and scattered in disarray, everyone I knew gone. So much emptiness, so much suffering. I knew that crippling the _Eye of Palpatine_ would require my life, but there was no need for the teachings to die with me. So I put my memories--not my consciousness--into the cube before I went up the shaft into the computer core. 

"I hoped that someday the Jedi would rise again--and that fate or the Force or even blind chance would lead someone back to the cube. It was all I could do." 

"But it's gone," Luke whispered. "It's gone. I destroyed it--" 

Callista smiled. "I wouldn't worry about it," she said. "You'll be fine. You've already done more than I was able to do without it." 

"I had help," he admitted. Cray had found the self-destruct button, and the secrets behind the portal device that had allowed them to escape. Callista had left him her lightsaber. Even Threepio had done his best to support him. "I couldn't have done it alone." 

"The Force is always with you, no matter how alone you are," she said. 

"I know... but it's just..." He hesitated for a moment, before he said what he had never dared say to anyone, not even Leia. "Sometimes, it doesn't feel like _enough_." 

She stared off into the distance, out into the bright starfields and perhaps to other places far beyond his sight. "You'll find a way, Luke. Life, after all, is very strange--and death no less so, in my experience." A long pause. "Or perhaps it will find you--" 

***

"LUKE!" Leia cried out as she swept into the cabin, jolting him out of his slumber. "It's so good to see you-- after so long without word, we'd almost given up hope--" She stopped short, staring at the extent of his injuries, before rushing forward to sweep him in a fierce hug as he sat up. 

"Leia," he whispered when he could breathe again. "You heard me, after all. You saved me." 

"I was so _worried_ \--" 

Coming in a few steps behind his wife, Han Solo's relief and delight were more subtle, but no less genuine. "Hey, kid, glad to see you made it," he said, ruffling Luke's hair with companionable ease. "You look like hell." 

"Glad to see you, too, Han," Luke said with a weak smile. "Certainly feels like I've been there and back again. Though you'll never believe I was asleep for most of it."

"Long time in suspension, huh?" said Han, who had lost a year of his life to carbon-freezing and understood the implications. "Goldenrod said it had given you brain damage or somethin'." 

"He said that, huh?" 

"He was very insistent," Leia agreed, sitting in the chair by Luke's bedside. "'People with brain damage are the real heroes', to be precise. Not that I notice much of a difference at the moment."

Luke couldn't help chuckling. "Give it time. I'll let you decide whether it's better or worse."

Han decided that the conversation was venturing too far into sentimentality and changed the subject. "Hey, kid, we picked up somethin' interestin' floating around out there on our way over. Mara said you were askin' about any wreckage that might have survived from the ship that was holdin' you." 

Luke froze. Was it the Will? Had she survived the explosion after all? Was she even now insinuating her way into the computer system of the _Millennium Falcon_ and wreaking havoc? He threw off the covers, and swung his bare feet onto the cold metal floor. 

The world blurred and swayed for a moment as he put his weight on both feet, then grew solid again. Good enough. "I've _got_ to see it," he said, tugging at the IV that was still in his arm. 

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, keep your shirt on," Han said, pushing Luke back down on the bed. "I'll go get it. It's not that big." He cast a worried glance at Leia, who nodded in agreement, and headed for the door. 

"What's this about?" Leia asked when Han was out of earshot, her eyes flickering from Luke's face to the doorway and back again. 

He didn't know how to explain. It was all too much at once, too fast, and he didn't know for certain what Han might have found. "I don't know. I just know that I have to see it, that's all." 

She reached out a hand to steady him. "Relax, Luke, it's all right. You're safe now. It didn't look like anything that would hurt us--" 

_You don't know that,_ he wanted to say, but he subsided back onto the bed with a sigh, every nerve on alert while they waited for Han to return. 

His absence stretched out for what felt like an eternity, but according to Leia's chronometer, it was only a few minutes before Han strode through the doorway with a large grey box in tow. It was dull and plain, completely nondescript except for the disturbingly life-like graphic of a human heart etched onto each side-- 

The Weighed Companion Cube. 

Luke's jaw dropped. He blinked and shook his head three times before he accepted what his eyes were showing his was real, and even then, he still didn't believe it. "How did you--how did you--" he stammered. 

"Luke?" said Leia with concern. "Are you all right?" 

He staggered back into the self-conforming bed, his mouth gaping, as his stunned mind tried and failed to summon any coherent response. He settled for hysterical laughter, rocking back and forth as he put the pieces together. 

" _All essential Imperial Science Enrichment Center equipment remains operational at temperatures up to 4,000 degrees Kelvin,_ " the Will had said to him. She'd ordered him to incinerate the Companion Cube, and he'd obeyed--but it had been a trap from the very beginning, in more ways than one. No doubt there had only ever been one Companion Cube, recycled over and over again to save on costs.

But, he realized with a flash of insight, the joke was on the Will. She had smugly assumed that _she_ was one such essential piece of equipment--but she was wrong. There was no way the Empire would create a monster that they couldn't destroy. They had lied to her, and she had parroted that lie to him. She had died in that explosion, and there would be no resurrection. 

Somehow, Callista had known. That was why she'd stored her secrets in the Companion Cube, the one thing besides the portal device that could have survived the _Eye of Palpatine_ 's destruction. It was why she'd written SAFE SECURE SECRETS INDESTRUCTIBLE CORE OPEN SURVIVAL SURVIVAL SURVIVAL on the wall around her self-portrait in the ventilation shaft, along with the cryptic injunction to FIND ME AT THE HEART OF THE MATTER. 

In the testing chambers, he had sensed the hidden depths that dwelled within the cube, but hadn't known how to open it. Instead, he'd let it slip through his nerveless fingers into the incinerator and given it up for loss.

" _Perhaps it will find you,_ " Callista had said in his dream. And here it was, restored to him, despite all odds. A second chance. Redemption. 

And this time, he knew how to unlock it. He'd found the key she'd scribbled on the wall all those years ago for him to find, the message that only a Jedi would understand: _HOLD ME TO YOUR HEART_. 

"Luke?" Leia repeated. "Luke? Do you know what this is?" 

"Yes," he said when his laughter faded, and he was capable of speech again. He reached out to take the Companion Cube from Han. Even as he touched it, he felt the dim echo of Callista's presence underneath his fingers, the calm wave of her memories waiting to awaken from their decades-old slumber. "Yes, I do. We're old friends."


End file.
